


There's an Echo of Myself in You

by Neyiea



Series: Equivalency [2]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Basically Jonathan is doomed, Enemies to Allies, M/M, Pet Names, Sexual Tension, the enemy of my enemy is my (boy)friend, the start of Jonathan's reluctant redemption arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-05-13 19:04:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19257328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neyiea/pseuds/Neyiea
Summary: “Tell me, Bruce, what do you think you would see if I used my fear-toxin on you?”Bruce looks straight into Jonathan’s eyes, keeping his face purposefully impassive as he says, “Nothing that I haven’t already lived through. Nothing that hasn’t already made me stronger.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ariadnes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariadnes/gifts).



> Continuation of Working with the Dark, because now that I've started writing Scarebat I??? Cannot stop thinking about it??? And the incredible potential and how much I love them together???
> 
> Anyways, this'll update slow since my other project really ought to be taking priority, but hey, more content! <3

Occasionally, when Bruce can’t find it within himself to sit still for an entire night, he sneaks into Wayne Enterprises. He slips through the abandoned foyer and past the portrait of his parents, and he picks the lock to the emergency staircase and goes down, down, down, to where the research and development floors are, accessible only by retinal scan. His company had brought about many great things, as well as many terrible things that made him wonder just how deep the corruption went, and Bruce wanted to get an idea about what may have been left over from projects that he’d never been made fully aware of, whether purposefully or out of an assumption that he didn’t care to know, and to see if there was anything he could put to use. 

The last time he had come here, after a second confrontation with Scarecrow that could have gone very wrong if his reflexes hadn’t been up to snuff, he’d scoured through the odds and ends and files to try and find a mask, or a prototype cloth, anything that might filter out airborne chemical agents without any luck. 

His reasons for coming this time aren’t so passive in nature.

Selina has been healed, but something about her has changed. She’s set on going after Jeremiah and Ivy’s words about what her seed was capable of sometimes ring in his head. Bruce knows that he’s not going to be able to stop Selina from searching, or change her mind, and eventually she’s going to run off into the Dark Zone with or without him to deliver her personal version of justice, whatever that may entail.

Bruce can’t let her go alone. And he can’t let her kill Jeremiah.

So he’s got to find something that will help him incapacitate Jeremiah before Selina has a chance to get too close. Justice will be served, but without bloodshed.

There’s been enough bloodshed in this city already.

He rarely, if ever, handles the prototype weapons designed for military contracts when he comes here. He vastly prefers gadgets meant for covert-operations over guns or, even worse, explosives. A retractable grappling hook canon that had fifty feet of a thinly woven rope capable of supporting three times his weight without snapping, the goggles that had a sensor on the nose bridge to automatically disengage night vision mode when it detected bright light, the small smoke bombs that fit so easily into compartments of the harness he’d started wearing whenever he went into the Dark Zone, because he could never be too sure when he might need to rappel down the side of a building, or what he might encounter out there.

Every little apparatus meant to aid in subterfuge instead of ending a life is something he takes stock of and makes careful use of. He had stayed behind to help his city, and sometimes that meant dipping into the Dark Zone to try and track down Jeremiah, or foiling the plans of gang members who wanted to break through the checkpoints to cause some chaos, or attempting to find people who’d been trapped in the dark and couldn’t make it to safety on their own. 

Or stealing back supplies. 

His confrontation with Scarecrow, weeks ago now, still leaves something inside of him reeling.

He’d been rough, rougher than he’d even meant to be, but the young man behind that sickening mask, as harmless as he might have appeared when uncovered, had gotten under his skin far too easily for it to not have been on purpose. Alluding to not only Jeremiah but Jerome as well, and suggesting with too much familiarity that they would be jealous of the interaction between himself and Bruce, and then, as if that were not enough—

The crooned pet-name and the implication of past intimacy between Bruce and one or both of the twins who had, in their own ways, made Gotham a nightmare had been too much for his fraying temper to withstand. 

And then for him to try and turn his fear-toxin onto Bruce again, even when he should have just stayed down for the count—

Not that Bruce ever stayed down for the count, but that was beside the point. 

In his immeasurable anger he’d knocked Scarecrow back against the floor so hard that he’d gone limp, and Bruce had looked down at his innocuous features; the slightly sunken eyes and cheeks that made him appear more fragile than he truly was, and he’d felt more guilty about him lying unconscious on the floor than he’d felt when making short work of his followers and leaving them in roughly the same state.

Or a worse state, even, considering the amount of hits it had taken for some of them to go down. 

There was a particular kind of power in your foes having a name and a face, he supposes. It lent them a sort of familiarity which caused an imbalance, a skewing of favoritism, or something of the like. He wouldn’t recognize any of Scarecrow’s followers unmasked, nor would he be able to name them. But he knows the colour of Jonathan’s eyes, and the way the shape of his mouth changes as he speaks, and he knows just how thin and seemingly delicate his wrists are, and that’s not information that he can put behind him.

Especially not when, after that second confrontation, he’d decided it would be in his best interest to become acquainted with the origin of the Scarecrow. No one had really wanted to speak to him on the matter, but he was finding that he had his own ways to get the information he was after. He’d gone through bits and pieces of reports that made his skin crawl, and not for the reasons that he might have expected, before he’d stealthily returned them back to their rightful place.

He was also finding that he was becoming better at sneaking through shadows and disappearing from sight when it suited him.

He’s becoming adept at using the dark to his advantage. He plans on becoming even more proficient. 

Gotham’s streets were swathed in inky shadows long before it had been divided into the Green Zone and the Dark Zone, and even after reunification happens Bruce thinks his city will still be filled with murky, indistinct corners and gloomy alleyways. 

Gotham has always been, and will always be, dark. It needs someone who can work within the dark to protect it. It needs someone who can work where and how the police cannot. It needs someone who is capable of making even the toughest, most seasoned criminals afraid of what repercussions their actions might bring on. 

They will not fear a man, but everyone fears the unknown. They will fear a faceless figure hidden in the darkness; a being made of shadows, ominous and incorporeal.

He’d seen that figure back when Ivy had almost killed him, back when she’d wanted him to hallucinate those terrible things before he died. He had seen a dark reflection of himself enveloped in the wings of hundreds of screeching bats, the creatures that Bruce had feared most in his childhood. 

Bruce makes his way through the lab, and very carefully does not think about what Ra’s told him he was meant to become.

Instead he looks at the tools that he can use to strike fear into the hearts of those who held no regard for the police or for the law, and he somehow cannot keep himself from wondering if he would have turned out different, more like Jonathan Crane, if he hadn’t had Alfred’s support in the wake of his parent’s death.

Or if he hadn’t found what he thinks is meant to be his calling. Or if he had accepted the role of heir that Ra’s had so fervently believed belonged to him.

There are just enough similarities between them—between their strengths and the way that they’ve transformed themselves, though Bruce’s metamorphosis is still only in the first stages while Jonathan’s is almost fully realized—that it doesn’t seem entirely unprecedented. 

He shakes those thoughts away and pulls out a stack of reports.

Many of the prototypes left here hadn’t been fully tested. Most of the projects that were at least close to the final stages were spirited away sometime during the evacuation, but Bruce doesn’t mind testing out what had been left behind for himself, and even if he is occasionally saddled with duds while out in the field he somehow manages to find a way to work around it.

Because he’s becoming better at thinking on his feet, too.

It takes several minutes, but he does eventually find the file he’d wanted to get his hands on. He flips through the preliminary reports and thoroughly reads the few rounds of testing data, because he doesn’t want anything to go wrong if he does end up using it against Jeremiah. 

A flashbang grenade was still a grenade, after all, and though it should be non-lethal he doesn’t want to take any chances. 

And there are only two left in the case when he finds it. One he can test, just to be sure that there was no fragmentation like in a standard grenade that may have been purposefully kept out of reports, and one left over in case of emergency.

He tucks them both into his bag and he slips back up the stairs, out of the building, down the eerily silent street. 

And he gradually becomes aware of the feeling of being watched. 

There is a slight, not entirely unfeasible chance that Selina had followed him on his errand tonight and is getting ready to pounce on him to ask what, exactly, he’d been doing on his own in an abandoned building for the better part of an hour. 

But there are more chances that it isn’t Selina, and he doesn’t want to get caught off guard again, especially so soon after he’d been caught off guard by Ivy. 

He readjusts his bag, warier of the contents inside being taken than for his own safety, and quietly sneaks into a dark alleyway. 

He sinks into the shadows like they are where he belongs, and perhaps he does, in a way. It was in the stifling darkness that his childhood ended, it was in that same darkness that the path he is on now began to open up in front of him.

Bruce makes a few turns and eventually doubles back to the point where he’d begun to feel the sensation of eyes on him. There’s a two-story shop to his left, with a candle flickering in the window that had not been there before, and he finds his eyes drawn towards the flame.

Had someone been watching him from inside?

He keeps his guard up and moves on, unwilling to linger in one place for too long.

He hears something, a shuffling, up ahead in the alley that he’d ducked into not ten minutes ago, and his curiosity wars with his suspicion. Whoever was out here with him it definitely wasn’t Selina, but it likely wasn’t a member of one of the innumerable gangs that has risen into power since their separation from the mainland. No way would any of them lay in wait this long to set up an attack on a lone teenager at night.

No, this kind of buildup, this kind of anticipation…

It’s Scarecrow’s style.

He stands at the mouth of the alley, listens to the soft sounds of movement coming from further in, and crosses his arms.

“I’m not going in there,” he announces, widening his stance because if his instincts are right, well, Scarecrow rarely goes out on his own and he needs to be ready for a wave of people dressed like plague doctors to come after him. The shuffling movement from inside the alleyway gets louder, eventually becoming more distinct, and Bruce watches with wry amusement as a stray cat calmly walks past him.

The shadowy path before him is silent, now.

“Well, that was anticlimactic,” he murmurs, and he turns away from the alley.

The hair on the back of his neck is still standing up. It’s best for him to move on. 

A hand with long, thin fingers grabs him by the shoulder and abruptly pulls him into the dark. Bruce bows his back, feet scrambling underneath him to keep himself upright, and within a few seconds he finds himself roughly shoved against a brick wall, the impact pushing the air out of his lungs and making the back of his head and shoulders sting.

And then the upper portion of a scythe finds a place to rest against his neck. 

“You haven’t watched many horror movies,” is the first thing Scarecrow decides to dryly say to him, “have you?” He chuckles softly when Bruce purses his lips into a frown instead of answering, and his voice drops into something mockingly intimate as he whispers, “Hello again, baby.”

“Hello Jonathan,” Bruce greets, deadpan.

“Jonathan Crane isn’t here anymore,” he chimes, “it’s only Scarecrow, now.”

Bruce doesn’t believe that for a single moment. Besides, referring to Jonathan solely as his alter-ego was just another way of giving in to him, another way of giving him power. Scarecrow is a fearsome creature but underneath that wicked costume he’s only a human being, just like every other wicked miscreant that’s been tearing Bruce’s city apart. 

Bruce knows what’s underneath that mask, and knowledge is power. 

His feet start shifting apart as he prepares to break free. 

“Ah ah, none of that.” Jonathan’s free hand rises up to cup the side of his face. Bruce can feel the rough fabric that covers his fingers, as well as the bits of metal and tubing that make up the aerosolizer for his fear-toxin which is far, far too close to Bruce for comfort. “I’ve only just caught you, it would be a shame for you to escape so quickly.”

Bruce weighs the pros and cons of trying to break free anyway while holding his breath. He thinks, however this situation may look from the outside, that he isn’t completely out of luck. Not yet. Not unless Jonathan does use the toxin on him, but he hasn’t yet, and there must be a reason for that. His inquisitive nature stirs up at the idea of playing along for a while to see what Jonathan is up to.

He’d always been fond of figuring things out for himself, after all.

Bruce sinks his weight against the wall, and though the scythe drops from its place at his neck Jonathan’s hand remains on his face. It is both a parody of endearment and an outright threat, and Bruce is thankful that the sleeves of his coat are covering the goosebumps that have broken out on his arms in response to it. 

“Tell me, Bruce, what do you think you would see if I used my fear-toxin on you?”

Bruce looks straight into Jonathan’s eyes, keeping his face purposefully impassive as he says, “Nothing that I haven’t already lived through. Nothing that hasn’t already made me stronger.”

It’s difficult to tell how much his expression shifts underneath the mask, but Jonathan’s eyes begin to glimmer with something that Bruce isn’t entirely sure he could correctly guess. Amusement or interest, maybe, though that doesn’t sound quite right.

“Yes.” Jonathan’s thumb traces a circle on his cheek, barely grazing the corner of his mouth. “Your life has been a dreadful tragedy, hasn’t it?”

It’s not said with pity, or empathy, just stated like a fact. It irks Bruce anyways, the fact that his life story is something that’s been shared in news articles and magazines, and easily consumed by strangers who would never know him as well as people who would try to use his past against him. 

“Not any more than yours,” he finds himself saying, and Jonathan leans in a little more.

He’s near enough for his intentions to seem almost amorous, even with the threat of his fear-toxin resting right against Bruce’s skin. Bruce doesn’t let himself react even though the closeness, the soft feeling of Jonathan’s exhalations against his mouth, makes him feel a little warmer. 

“I suppose you’re not wrong about that.” Jonathan’s eyes trace over his features slowly, trying to read Bruce’s expression for any hint of a tell. “We are both perseverant. That similarity is not going to stop me from finding out what terror looks like on your face.”

With Jonathan so preoccupied he doesn’t notice that one of Bruce’s hands is at work, opening up one of the compartments on his harness and drawing something small out into his palm.

“You’re afraid of being hit by my toxin, that much was made obvious by our last few scuffles. Why is that, if you truly believe that you have nothing left to fear?” Jonathan’s head cocks to the side, overtly inquisitive. “If you believe that you’ve already survived all of the horrible things that life could possibly throw at you?”

“Are you going to spray me,” Bruce finds himself saying, feeling a little more daring in the face of Jonathan’s continuous chatter, “or are you just going to talk to me all night?”

He’s gotten into so many scuffles with criminals who love to hear themselves talk. Jonathan isn’t someone who Bruce can afford to take lightly or underestimate, but he’s not completely in a league above the villains that Bruce has faced before. He has his own vices, his own weaknesses.

Bruce will figure them out. And he’ll use them to his advantage. 

“There’s no need to rush, baby,” Jonathan tells him softly. His tone reminds Bruce of the way girls used to speak to him back when he was trying to drink and party his problems away, and that’s something that his mind snags on. Pet-names aside, since Bruce assumed that was more mocking than anything, did Jonathan mean to sound so… Flirty? “A little foreplay never hurt anyone. Besides, your brave front just makes me more curious. Why are you afraid of my toxin, if you think there’s nothing left for you to be frightened of? Is it because—” He comes even closer to whisper in Bruce’s ear. “—You’re worried it’ll awaken something dark that you’ve locked inside of yourself, just like it did with Jeremiah? That you’ll be overcome by it?”

And Bruce knows that he’s only mentioned Jeremiah to get a reaction, and he knows he shouldn’t give in to let him have what he wants, but he feels his lips curl into a scowl anyways.

Jonathan pulls back and his hand trails down from his cheek to hook under his chin. Bruce stares at him in stony silence, his fist clenching tight around the smoke bomb in his palm. 

“There’s an uncanny amount of potential in you, I wonder how that came about.” Jonathan looks at Bruce intently, like he wants to cut him open and analyze all that he finds. “How did someone such as yourself become so strong?”

Bruce is sick of people talking to him about his potential, especially when they only wanted him to gain his power through the twisted ways that they approved of. 

He’ll make his own strength. He’ll use his own methods, for his own purposes. 

He leans into Jonathan’s space, close enough that if they were two normal young men someone would be making assumptions about their relationship with each other, and he sees Jonathan’s eyes widen slightly as if caught off guard.

He could dish out false intimacy, but once the tables were turned on him he couldn’t take it.

Good.

“That part of my life hasn’t been covered by any of the news channels or magazines,” Bruce tells him evenly. He doesn’t mean to, but his lips skim against the ragged mask edges that surround Jonathan’s mouth. The rough, scratching sensation makes his mouth tingle and his cheeks go a bit hot, but he doesn’t back away. That would be showing weakness, and he can’t afford that. Jonathan’s fingers twitch against him, and Bruce shrewdly watches his eyelids sink half-shut. “So I suppose you’ll just have to guess.”

And without further preamble he throws the smoke bomb onto the ground between them and breaks out of Jonathan’s hold before he can use his fear-toxin in retaliation. He runs down the alley while the clouds are still thick and takes the grappling hook canon off of his harness. He usually aims carefully before he shoots, but he doesn’t have time to waste on figuring out trajectories right now, not with Jonathan so close and his fear-toxin an inevitable end should Bruce fail to get away fast enough. 

He aims and shoots on instinct, trusting that he’s done this enough times by now that his quick predictions will work in his favour. 

By the time the smoke clears Jonathan is alone in the alley, and Bruce looks down at him from the rooftop.

He doesn’t expect Jonathan to look up almost immediately, gaze locking right onto him.

Bruce’s breath catches in his throat for some reason. 

No one’s ever thought to look up after he’s disappeared. Their paranoia tends to work against them and they assume that he’s melted away, dematerializing like smoke in the wind.

Perhaps, backlit by the moon as he is right now, he’s still too noticeable. Perhaps he’s casting a shadow that Jonathan had caught sight of. He’ll have to start factoring that into his disappearing acts. The more incorporeal, and the less human he seemed, the more the criminals of Gotham would come to fear him. When he vanishes, he needs to stay vanished. 

He backs away from the edge of the roof, not taking his eyes off of Jonathan’s until the young man has fully disappeared from his view, and then he continues his journey home.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Could not resist writing a little something from Jonathan's pov. He's so far gone already, what a dork.

Jonathan watches as Bruce disappears from the edge of the roof that he’d somehow managed to reach during a handful of unobserved seconds, and he feels as if he’s been caught up by a riptide. 

He hadn’t been able to resist when he saw Bruce wandering alone in the dark. He’d set up a little trap that had worked even better than planned, and at long last he was the one who was doing the pinning instead of the one being pinned. 

It was almost intoxicating, having Bruce trapped between himself and a wall. Nowhere to run and unable to hide himself away in the shadows that he was so proficient—just like Jonathan—at navigating. 

Their exchange had been entertaining; Bruce was fun to threaten, to loom over, to rile up, to watch, but at the moment Jonathan couldn’t remember anything that he or Bruce had said for the life of him because—

Bruce had moved in so close right before he’d thrown down a _smoke bomb_ to make his getaway. Jonathan had felt the edges of his mask shift ever-so-slightly around his mouth and the rush of air against his lips as Bruce spoke. He’d thought to himself, yes yes yes, more than ready to lean back only far enough to pull up the bottom half of his mask before closing the distance and doing what he’d been contemplating ever since their last altercation. 

Bruce would probably be so grimly pretty when he was terrified. Tightly reigned in panic quickly giving way to full blown hysteria with tormented cries falling from his mouth. His dark eyes, glossy with unshed tears and framed so nicely by his eyelashes, would render him lovelier than the leading ladies in some of Jonathan’s favourite horror flicks. The ones who somehow survived in the end, shaken and wounded and covered in blood that wasn’t just their own. 

He might be even more stunning after being kissed. His striking features softened by affection, dark eyes fluttering shut and rosy lips parted. 

Jonathan had literally had Bruce’s face in his hand, had felt Bruce’s breath against his mouth, had been so close to eliminating that tiny bit of distance left between them.

And then Bruce had slipped out of his grasp and hadn’t even taken advantage of Jonathan’s surprise to land a few punches or slam him up against a wall in retaliation. Perhaps he was smart enough to realize that Jonathan’s instinct in such a situation would be to release his toxin into the air even if he didn’t have a clear shot, and that inhaling even trace amounts would be enough to cause some vicious side effects. 

Bruce had already proven himself to be unexpectedly clever. And tricky. 

When the smoke cleared and Jonathan hadn’t seen him in front or behind him he’d looked up—because not enough people thought of looking up, and Bruce had already proven himself fairly proficient at advancing on a vertical axis—and there he had been, a dark shadow against the night sky, the faint, silvery light of the moon highlighting the edges of him just enough to perceive traces of something vaguely human-shaped. 

Anyone other than Jonathan—who was by now hyperaware of the identity of that silhouette—might have been afraid at the sight; an imposing figure watching from above as if ready to enact judgment for past and present crimes. An avenging angel, or a gargoyle brought to life. 

Ominous. 

Otherworldly. 

Jonathan’s heart had beat faster in his chest, and his sharp mind—already somewhat frazzled from his unachieved desire for a kiss—had tripped up even further. 

Using Jonathan’s own exploitative tactics against him, disappearing into smoke like a specter, moving quieter and faster than any human should, perching fearlessly on the edge of a rooftop to gaze down in an almost predatory manner…

Bruce was practically perfect in every way, wasn’t he?

Stunning and brutal in his anger, calm and manipulative when he needed to be, sweet and merciful when he could afford to be; a slew of contradictions wrapped up in an unexpectedly strong, unfairly attractive package. Bruce should be an easy target, a spineless victim like so many of Gotham’s former elite turned into once they became aware that money and influence couldn’t solve all their problems. But he’s not, not at all. He’s cunning and dark and forceful in a way that fits in better with the former Legion of Horribles than any regular Gotham citizen, and that matches quite nicely with Jonathan’s methods, in particular. And Jonathan…

_Wants._

Wants to see him break only to put himself back together again, stronger than ever, in the way that he must have after every tragedy that he’d survived and every gauntlet of fire that he’d been forced to run through. Wants to see how closely he might mirror Jonathan’s own rebirth from his former self into the Scarecrow, wants to see what he’d turn himself into. 

Wants his terror and brutality and kindness.

Wants to find out if Bruce’s skin is as soft as it looks. If his lips would be an unyielding pressure or if they would give way underneath Jonathan’s own. 

He has so much to do, so much terror to spread, and he can’t let his focus on that diminish. Any weakness shown out here would be exploited in a matter of minutes. 

But maybe he can afford to give himself some secondary objectives that have nothing to do with his kingdom of fear.

He’d thought, before he’d even become aware that Bruce Wayne was the dark figure underneath the night vision goggles that was giving his followers trouble, that if converted he’d be an excellent right-hand man. An excellent partner, even. 

He’s even more sure of that now, and he knows that it isn’t because he misses the companionship and understanding from the other members of the Legion before they’d gone their separate ways. Or at least, it’s not only because of that.

There are similarities between them that Jonathan cannot, and will not, ignore. 

There’s so much latent darkness inside of Bruce; it must be eating him up inside, it must be consuming him, how else could he survive his stints in the Dark Zone? Anyone who wasn’t fit to be out here didn’t last long, and even some of the ones who did belong found themselves discarded or fallen, not mentally or physically strong enough to carry on when surrounded by so many things more monstrous than themselves. 

When Jonathan had first heard about the man who worked with the darkness, instead of against the darkness, to give his followers trouble in the hospital basement he’d been intrigued, but not enough to go out of his way to search for them.

But he is willing to go a little out of his way for Bruce.

He stares up at the empty rooftop that Bruce had retreated to, a harrowing excitement drilling deep inside of him; right into his bones, right into his thundering heart.

“I’ll see you again soon, baby,” he promises.

Bruce won’t get away so easily the next time Scarecrow manages to catch him.

Next time…

Jonathan shivers at the possibilities.

Next time Jonathan is going to dig his fingers in, and he’s not going to let go.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Catch me using Alfred's disappearance to drive Bruce into making unwise decisions, (or at least decisions that he wouldn't normally make) for the second time in a fic.   
> Look guys, I have very strong feelings about what Bruce must have felt when he realized Alfred was gone and over the days that he was missing. No way was Bruce handling it with any amount of grace.

Bruce is going to take this city apart street by street, piece by piece, _brick by brick_ if he has to until he finds out what happened to Alfred and where he’s disappeared to. 

He’s been hidden away in some unknown location on this island, and he’s still alive because Bruce absolutely refuses to believe that life could be so unforgivingly cruel as to take that much more away from him after he’s already lost so much. But even with the firm belief that Alfred is still drawing breath somewhere the fact that Alfred had been lost, had been taken, is probably hurt—

It burns him up from the inside out.

There’s a fire raging at the heart of him and every passing hour where Alfred is not found and returned to his side only fans the flames. 

There are apparently no clues, apparently no witnesses. Bruce thinks that’s impossible. Someone must have seen something, must know something. The Green Zone was packed with people who’d gotten used to looking over their shoulders and sneaking glances out of their windows at night out of an entirely reasonable concern for their own safety, but no one has come forward with information, and no matter how hard the remaining officers of the GCPD search they can’t seem to find any leads. 

There are no trails to follow in the Green Zone.

But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any out in the Dark, beyond the barricades. 

That must be where Alfred is. If he was still in the Green Zone Bruce would have found him by now. 

And what choice does Bruce have but to go off on his own investigation once the sun begins to set? Selina had disappeared shortly after their conversation at Sirens, and she would have been the only one who he trusted enough to go into the Dark Zone with. 

Two days have passed since Alfred never showed up after going back to the apartment for supplies. That’s two days too long.

Bruce is going to find him, come hell or high water or whatever monsters might be lurking in the shadows who might try to get in his way.

Let them try to get in his way.

He’d deal with them. He might even be able to get some answers from whoever was unfortunate enough to attempt to stand against him. 

He arms himself in Lucius’s gear, and every gadget that he thinks might be of use to him is either clipped onto his harness or hidden away into one of the compartments. His grappling hook canon, his night vision goggles, what’s left of the smoke bombs, the remaining flashbang grenade. He even slips a knife into a holster on his thigh, just in case. If it means getting Alfred back he’ll use it.

He’s desperate, he’s angry, he’s—

Scared.

More scared than he’s been in a long time. 

Sneaking past the barricade is easy, and though he’d already been aware of this due to the number of times he’s gone out before, that, too, makes the fire within him burn brighter.

It shouldn’t be this easy for anyone to sneak out. Or in.

Or in and then out with a _hostage_. 

He sinks into the growing shadows of dusk with a snarl on his mouth, like a beast baring its teeth in warning. 

He will find Alfred.

He will make whoever took him pay.

Finding people to question is far easier than finding answers. He approaches occupants of the Dark Zone, most of whom smirk at him or leer at him, who underestimate him or insult him, at least until he has them pinned, or in a chokehold, or on their knees facing away from him as he pulls their arm back, back, back until the threat of it popping right out of its socket doesn’t need to be explicitly stated. Still, everyone claims that they’ve heard nothing, seen nothing, and Bruce leaves them behind to find someone else, someone with information. 

It feels like a brutal, endless cycle. Hours pass and he’s still found no trace of Alfred, and no one, even out here, seems to know anything. 

All he has to show for his efforts are bruised knuckles and a steadily rising panic.

And, not entirely surprisingly, the undeniable feeling of being watched. 

He’s been stirring up trouble all night, crossing through territories and over borders without second thought. The ones who’ve been keeping to themselves in the shadows are sizing him up, maybe weighing the pros and cons of sharing anything they might know before he has a chance to track them down and use force to get them to talk, because gang affiliations mean nothing to Bruce at the moment. 

That’s been made abundantly clear.

Another hot-shot who’d tried to intimidate him when Bruce had been, initially, nothing but cordial in his quest for answers falls before him and doesn’t get up, and Bruce turns to exit the grungy walk-in clinic. 

“Such viciousness.”

Bruce whirls around, scowling at the dark corners of the expansive waiting room that he’s in as he tries to pinpoint the location of the familiar voice.

Of all of the villains in the entirely of the Dark Zone of course it had to be Scarecrow keeping an eye on him. 

“You’re usually subtler than this,” Jonathan continues from wherever he’s hidden himself away, and Bruce’s fists clench at his sides. “Not that I’m complaining. Seeing you take down a grown man twice your size is… Entertaining. It lacks your usual style, however.”

“I am not in the mood to play one of your mind games.”

“Even though we usually have so much fun together?” Jonathan’s voice calls from behind him. Bruce curbs the urge to twist around immediately, not wanting to appear startled. “Baby, I’m hurt.”

Bruce turns to look over his shoulder and catches a glimpse of a moving shadow in the dark, and a glint of light off of the blade of a familiar weapon. 

“Does it look like I care about causing pain at the moment?”

“No.” Dark gratification colours Jonathan’s voice, and Bruce feels his scowl deepen in response to it. “You’ve been leaving a trail of half-broken bodies behind you all night, it’s been a pleasure to watch, really, even if it’s not like you.” He slowly steps into the dim light that’s filtering in from the dirty windows, approaching Bruce with his particular brand of horrific poise. 

“You don’t know what I’m like.”

Jonathan’s head cocks to the side, and he looks Bruce up and down slowly. “I know enough.” He takes another step forward, blue eyes bright and piercing behind his mask. “You hide it well behind the anger but there’s fear in your eyes, I can see it plain as day. What’s gotten you so worked up?” 

He doesn’t bother denying his fear. He has more important things to focus on. 

“I’m looking for someone,” he says, falling into what has become his compulsory speech, “Alfred Pennyworth. British. Late forties. Six feet tall, medium build. Can throw a punch far better than one might expect, and wouldn’t go down without a fight. If you ever followed any news stories about me—” And Jonathan might have, considering his irritating quip about Bruce’s tragic life the last time they’d crossed paths. “—you may have caught a glimpse of him. He’s been missing for two days, have you seen him?”

Jonathan is quiet for several moments. It’s hard to tell if it’s because he’s surprised at Bruce’s openness, or something else. “I can’t say that I have,” he eventually responds. 

“Then get out of my way.”

Instead of doing the reasonable thing and stepping aside Jonathan shifts closer.

“It seems to me like you could use some help. There are a lot of hideouts out here that are being used, and even more that aren’t. More than three quarters of this city fled during the evacuation, and there are empty pockets left behind everywhere you could care to look. Are you going to search each one all by yourself?”

“I will if I have to.”

“That’s what I’m telling you, Bruce.” Nearer and nearer he draws, until he’s within arm’s reach. “You don’t have to. I could help.”

“You?” He can’t keep the disbelief out of his tone.

“Me,” Jonathan replies. There’s a flash of teeth, a sharp smile, behind the mouth of his mask. “I have followers who are eager to show their true mettle, and I myself am something of an expert when it comes to navigating the dark and—” He flexes his fingers meaningfully. “Spilling secrets.” 

To not work alone on this would be ideal, even if Bruce knows that there must be a price attached to this offer.

But was there any price too high when it came to getting Alfred back?

No.

“What would you want in return?”

“Take a guess.”

Bruce fists a hand into his shirt and reels him in. Jonathan’s eyes go wide before fluttering half-shut and he proceeds to lean in even closer, as if undaunted by the likely consequences of intruding on Bruce’s personal space. 

Did it make him feel powerful, looming over Bruce like a second shadow?

“I do not have time for this. Either make your conditions clear or I’m leaving you behind one way or another.” 

The threat is obvious, but instead of reacting with a modicum of self-preservation Jonathan hums in a way that reminds Bruce of their second confrontation where he’d intently fanned the flames of Bruce’s anger by insinuating that people were going to get jealous of their routine, by asking if he liked to play rough and if a certain set of twins had known that about him, too. 

Bruce thinks about that night, and the sight of Jonathan’s face, and the feeling of his thin wrist gripped tightly in his hand. Then he thinks about the last time they were together; the sensation of Jonathan’s breath against his mouth, and the way that Bruce himself had leaned in too-close towards the end, and how his lips had tingled when they skimmed over Jonathan’s mask. His cheeks grow a little warmer despite himself. 

Then he thinks about the way Jonathan had looked up, when no one else ever had, and caught sight of him on the rooftop. 

Jonathan could be a powerful ally if he would stop trying so hard to get inside of Bruce’s head and underneath his skin. 

“An answer to a question that I have will suffice in return for my help tonight. If you need help again tomorrow, well,” his voice drops, full of a meaning that Bruce doesn’t have the time to puzzle out, “we’ll have to revisit our terms.”

That seems too easy, and Jonathan’s tone is too comfortably smug, but if Bruce continues to search the Dark by himself it could take weeks for him to find Alfred.

And Jonathan has lived out here for months. He knows the Dark Zone better than anyone else who Bruce might be able to ally himself with and he’s adept at moving around unseen, at least until he wants to be seen. He could slip in and out of hideouts and lairs with just as much ease as Bruce or maybe even more since, as he’d insinuated, Bruce’s temper was currently making him far less subtle than usual. 

This isn’t an offer that he can refuse. 

“What’s the question?”

He’s prepared, already, for what he supposes Jonathan would be most curious about: where did you learn to fight, why did you work alone to steal back the supplies, why did you leave that bottle of painkillers behind—

Jonathan’s hand cups the side of his face, a mimicry of their last confrontation. 

A blank look settles over Bruce’s features, even as his heart does a strange little twinge in his chest. 

“If I sprayed you with my fear-toxin right now, what do you think you would see?”

The last time Jonathan had asked him that question the answer had slipped so easily out of Bruce’s mouth. He’d already survived so much horror, after all.

It doesn’t come as easily this time, but he forces himself to answer all the same.

“I would see Alfred Pennyworth dying, and I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.”

That won’t happen. Bruce won’t let it happen. Even if he has to team up with the man who spreads fear like it’s his one true calling in life while having approximately zero regard for personal space.

But really, did he do this with everyone who he was trying to get a reaction out of?

Or was Bruce unlucky enough to deserve an individualized approach?

Maybe this was payback for the times that Bruce had pinned him to the floor. Jonathan does seem like the type who would hold a grudge. 

Jonathan hums again, pleased. “Such honesty,” he remarks, and Bruce barely suppresses the urge to take him by the shoulders and shake him. Jonathan’s fingers trail down the side of his face, the metal and tubing of his aerosolizer just as much of a hair-raising threat as ever. “Are you always scared for others and never for yourself?” The tips of his fingers graze the spot underneath Bruce’s chin. “I can’t quite tell if that’s noble or foolish.”

“Maybe it’s both,” Bruce cuts in, impatient and unwilling to get into an argument about any perceived righteousness or idiocy on his part. Jonathan’s eyes glint.

“Maybe it’s both,” he says agreeably as he finally takes a step back. “I’ll tell my followers to look for your Alfred. We’ll start with the northern parts of the city, we know the area well enough that it won’t take long.”

Something inside of Bruce is insisting that this is far too easy, that the answer to Jonathan’s question was not nearly enough for the assistance that he was offering. Maybe it’s a trap, and he’s going to spray Bruce anyways to see if Bruce was right about what he’d see when under the influence of the toxin.

Or maybe he’s not actually planning on helping at all. Maybe he’s just toying with Bruce, reveling in the sensation of giving him false hope. 

He wants to ask ‘why are you helping me’, but perhaps it was better if he didn’t know.

Who’s to say that Jonathan wouldn’t lie about his intentions, anyways?

“If you do find something out how am I supposed to get into contact with you?”

This is not the first, and it is unlikely to be the last, time that Bruce wishes the mask of the Scarecrow didn’t make it so difficult to read the expressions of the young man underneath. 

“Don’t worry about that, baby,” Jonathan all but outright croons. The pet-name is, apparently, going to continue being a thing. It’s just another way for him to get under Bruce’s skin, he supposes. “I’ll find you.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah yes, here we go. I actually looked up a map of Gotham while writing this chapter, so I feel fairly accomplished.

The night and early morning had proven fruitless for Bruce, and all he still has to show for six straight hours in the Dark Zone are his bruised knuckles, the bags under his eyes, and a quasi-partnership that he isn’t even sure is genuine. 

He’d attempted to get some rest after sneaking back into the Green Zone at dawn; he’d slipped in and out of an uneasy sleep which had left him feeling even more drained, but he’d gone to the precinct in the morning anyway because he was far too keyed up to stay away. 

Bruce had managed a few hours of staring at a map of Gotham, turning it into a grid and meticulously crossing out the sections that the GCPD or himself had searched. He’d folded it up and hidden it in his coat before anyone could have the chance to glimpse at it and start wondering what all the ‘x’s in the Dark Zone meant. It wasn’t long after that that he’d been kicked out on a mandatory lunch break and told to get some fresh air.

Bruce had already had plenty of fresh air last night and it hadn’t done anything for him, but he couldn’t exactly say that to Detective Bullock, so he’d taken a walk down to the closest thing to a park that existed within the Green Zone and had sat down on a worn bench before pulling the map back out. 

There are so many unchecked spaces, and so many buildings with multiple floors, and so many little spots that would likely never be put on a map; deserted subway tunnels, claustrophobically narrow alleyways, secret places like the Indian Hill facility which were hidden within or underneath pre-existing infrastructure. If Jonathan Crane was just toying with him and wasn’t going to go through with his offer of assistance and Bruce ended up having to look through the Dark on his own…

All he needs is one lead, just one, but how long would it take him to find it?

He hears footsteps and his eyes briefly flick up, spotting a woman crossing through the park with her head down and shoulders hunched, trying to pass by without drawing too much attention. Bruce quickly turns his gaze back to the map and tries to figure out where he should start tonight. 

If the northern part of the city had been taken care of—but he didn’t know if the northern part of the city had been taken care of—

Darkness filters over his vision.

A pair of hands covers his eyes.

He goes tense, because there are very few people who are capable of taking him by surprise these days, but then, of course—

“Guess who.”  


Jonathan Crane, who had a thing for sneaking up on him and invading his personal space. Bruce is honestly more astonished that he didn’t immediately use his favourite pet-name than the fact that he’s here. Although, Bruce thinks as his hands come up to move Jonathan’s away from his face, it was bound to be said sooner or later. He turns to look over his shoulder.

“Hello Jonathan.”

He looks incredibly ordinary out of his costume and mask, just another survivor in the Green Zone trying to make it through another day. He seems slighter, and much less of a threat, with his long hair and baby blues and his suspiciously non-threatening smile. He certainly doesn’t look like someone who would have an easy time winning any sort of fight, physical or psychological, let alone being capable of having a throng of people scream in fear because of him. Bruce takes a moment to think that after reunification finally happens Jonathan may be able to slip under the radar and stay out of Arkham, or sneak out of Gotham altogether, because how many people really knew what he looked like when he wasn’t dressed up as his own personal horror story?

“It appears that you have found me.”

Jonathan’s smile widens, and his eyes catch the light in a way that is difficult not to take note of as he sits himself next to Bruce.

“I always will, baby,” he promises.

Ah, there it was.

Bruce wonders if the pet-name, much like his tendency towards falsified physical intimacy, is something that he could dish out and not take.

Ha.

Maybe he’d test that theory. It was only fair, after all.

x-x-x

Jonathan is not one to ignore opportunity when it knocks.

When he’d tracked Bruce down in the Dark Zone last night, an easy enough task given the trail that he left behind, he hadn’t expected such outright violence. Not even his followers had been exposed to such ruthlessness all those weeks ago. Bruce was furious, that much was blatantly obvious, but when Jonathan had revealed himself and come in to take a closer look he had seen something spectacular hidden behind the rage. 

Bruce, who at times seemed almost invulnerable, was scared about something. Jonathan had found himself almost painfully curious about what could have possibly brought it on. He’d asked.

He hadn’t actually expected an answer. 

Inspiration had struck like lightening. 

Bruce was angry, and afraid, and in the midst of a situation that would only—one way or another—make him stronger, and Jonathan wanted front row seats to his ensuing transformation. Whether or not Alfred Pennyworth was found mattered little because Bruce had already begun to evolve into something more brutal during his short absence, and if offering aid meant that Jonathan was able to keep a close eye on him…

And maybe embed himself more thoroughly into Bruce’s life…

He’s allowed to be selfish. He’s allowed to want.

And oh, how. He. Wants. 

The number of times that he and Bruce have crossed paths could be counted on one hand, which makes his level of interest seem ridiculous, but really, who could blame him? There was something about Bruce Wayne that drew in those who had been touched by unspeakable darkness.

Even now, just sitting beside him, was enough to make Jonathan crave something more.

Jonathan is going to make the absolute most of this opportunity.

He turns, his gloved hands linking together—it wouldn’t do to render himself completely harmless on his excursion to the Green Zone after all—and crosses his legs. His knee presses against Bruce’s thigh, and his ankle grazes against his calf.

“You look tired; nightmares keeping you up at night?”

Bruce scowls at him and Jonathan is, as always, delighted to get under his skin so easily.

“I slept,” Bruce states curtly. 

“Not very well by the looks of things. You’ve got to take better care of yourself, baby.”

Or maybe partner up with someone who’d look out for him.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Bruce dryly replies as he takes a folded piece of paper out of his coat. Then, sending an unreadable look Jonathan’s way, he flatly tacks on, “darling.”

Jonathan very carefully does not react.

Bruce unfolds the paper casually, as if he hadn’t just made Jonathan’s treacherous heart skip a beat without having to dissolve into shadow or move like a predator or threaten bodily harm on someone, and he pulls a pen out of his coat pocket. 

“Here.” He holds the pen out to Jonathan, who takes it without comment because he’s still caught up on being called ‘darling’ as if it were an everyday occurrence. “Cross out the sections on the map that you searched last night.” He hands over the map as well, and when Jonathan takes it their fingers brush and he finds himself, quite mystifyingly, wishing that he wasn’t wearing his gloves after all.

Though his focus is far more fixed on the teenager beside him he scans the map for familiar street names and after a few moments he crosses out a large part of the northern section, pleased with himself for having covered so large an area. He hands the pen and map back over to Bruce, who scrutinizes Jonathan’s work intently. 

“You covered all of New Town and Amusement Mile?”

“Everything aboveground.” It hadn’t taken long. Jonathan and his followers had familiarized themselves with most of the northern parts of the city over the months that they’d been out there, and he was sure that nothing had slipped past them. “We searched all of Knights Stadium and the Giordano Botanical Gardens, too.”

Bruce hums under his breath and then proceeds to put small ‘x’s in every separate part of the grid that Jonathan and his followers had searched.

His painstaking attention to detail is kind of… Endearing. It is also not something that Jonathan had ever expected to find endearing. 

“Meticulous, aren’t you?”

“I like to be thorough,” Bruce says, pen continuing to scratch against the surface of the map. “I’m assuming, since you didn’t mention anything, that you did not find any clues about Alfred’s whereabouts?” 

“Afraid not, baby.”

“Then I suppose I shall enlist your help for tonight as well.” Bruce briefly pauses his writing, then throws out a seemingly offhand, “honey.”

Jonathan’s fingers twitch. 

Another affectionate nickname, so soon after the first?

How did that old quote go? Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action?

Bruce crosses his last ‘x’ and refolds the map before turning his attention to Jonathan. “What are your stipulations for a second night of assistance?” His expression is all business, but Jonathan is good enough at reading people that he can see the guarded way he’s holding himself and hear the wary note in his tone. 

Last night he’d asked for so little. Tonight he can ask for more. 

But how much more? He, quite uncharacteristically, doesn’t want to scare Bruce off. Nor does he want to make Bruce angry enough that he’d be making himself a target for all of the rage that he’d been showcasing last night. Although making him a little angry, just so that he could see the way Bruce’s eyes sparked menacingly, wasn’t entirely out of the question. 

If he asks for something that Bruce isn’t willing to give and he decides to forego his help, well, Jonathan can still watch from a distance, but he doesn’t want to be distant. Something—many things, even—draws him towards Bruce.

Opposites attract was such an archaic idea.

Like goes with like.

Like _belongs with_ like.

He shifts closer and reaches out a hand, briefly tracing the darkened skin under an eye with his thumb before his palm settles fully against Bruce’s cheek.

“Tonight you and I are going to search Otisburg together while my followers cover The Hill and Burnley. I don’t want you to slow me down—” Bruce goes rigid and his eyes absolutely burn at the implication. Jonathan can’t help but smirk at his undisguised affront. If Bruce were a cat all of his fur would be standing on end. “—so I expect you to get some rest beforehand. As for what I want…”

He wants so much, and he can’t seem to keep himself from leaning further into Bruce’s space. Bruce purses his lips and narrows his eyes at him, looking just as striking as ever, and despite how much he covets it Jonathan gets the feeling that if he asks for a kiss he’s going to get punched in the mouth for not taking things seriously right before Bruce walks away and never looks back.

The situation that has brought them together isn’t necessarily important to Jonathan—beyond the obvious opportunity to align himself with Bruce to bring them that much closer together and open them up for more extensive partnerships in the future—but the disappearance of Alfred Pennyworth is evidently a pivotal situation for Bruce, and he has to keep that in mind. 

“I have more questions for you to answer, Bruce.”

A kiss would be nice. Better than nice, even. But Jonathan has had questions ever since he first saw the shadowy figure that had terrorized his followers take off his night vision goggles to reveal Bruce Wayne’s face underneath, and his curiosity has only grown since then.

Plus, the better he gets to know Bruce the closer he can get to Bruce. 

“How many questions?”

No nicknames in response to his given name. Jonathan senses a theme. 

“As many as I care to ask.”

Bruce doesn’t even bat an eye as he shifts into Jonathan’s space, actually leaning his face into Jonathan’s hand. He could close the distance between them in less than a second, could press against Bruce’s mouth and find out just how soft his lips were. He’s—

“And what if I don’t want to answer?”

If Bruce wants to be secretive, well, answering questions was the easy form of payment. If he doesn’t want to indulge Jonathan’s curiosity, then he’ll have to indulge Jonathan’s other whims.

“Then I guess we’ll have to figure something else out, baby.”

Bruce’s eyes flit over his face, searching for something in his expression. “Fine,” he eventually grits out, clearly displeased at Jonathan’s apparent lack of forethought, “dear.”

Jonathan can’t help it, he has to laugh, and Bruce looks even more affronted as he does.

“Are you going to keep calling me endearments every time I refer to you as baby?”

Bruce pulls away and crosses his arms testily. “No.”

Jonathan can live with that. He likes the way that Bruce says his name.

Although he could probably live with the occasional term of affection, if it came from Bruce. Turnabout was fair play, and all that. 

“Well, sweet thing,” he drawls with a smirk, “I’ll meet you outside of the northern checkpoint at sunset. I’d suggest going home now and catching up on sleep.”

“It’s the middle of the day,” Bruce grouses, “I won’t be able to sleep.”

“I’m sure you will.” Jonathan, unable to resist, reaches out to tuck a lock of hair behind Bruce’s ear. “Creatures like us are nocturnal. It’s in our nature.”

Bruce’s irritated expressions are really so much more vivid in the light of day. Jonathan finds himself fascinated by the nuances that indicate his dark, shifting mood.

“We’re not creatures.”

“Aren’t we? We creep through the shadows and strike fear into the hearts of our enemies. When night falls and we cast off the shells of normalcy to showcase what we really are—” Ominous. Vicious. Using the rightful terror of others to their advantage. “—we’re like horror movie antagonists brought to life, baby.”

They’re two sides of the same coin, really. 

Bruce cocks his head to the side, eyes flicking upward as if to analyze what Jonathan has told him. That he doesn’t immediately refute Jonathan’s claim is incredibly telling.

Bruce _wants_ to use fear as a weapon. Bruce _wants_ , whether he fully realizes it or not, to become a little more like the Scarecrow. Who Bruce chooses to use that weapon against matters little to Jonathan, who could already hazard a guess that it wouldn’t be against the weak links in the Green Zone that Bruce seemed so fond of, what really mattered was his desire to mimic Jonathan’s greatest strength. What could Bruce accomplish if he stayed on this path?

What could they accomplish together?

The possibilities are endless. 

Bruce shrugs his shoulders and nods once, as if in passive agreement to Jonathan’s statement. 

The way he’s agreeing without wanting to actually verbalize it is…

Cute.

Jonathan removes himself from the bench before he can do anything that will end with him getting pinned to the ground or, even worse, jilted. Partnering with Bruce for this is a foot in the door but forcing entry too quickly will likely leave him with a broken foot, especially with Bruce’s volatile emotional state leaving him more vicious than usual. As much as Jonathan enjoys baiting him he doesn’t actually want Bruce to become too angry with him.

It’s delicate work, sinking your fingers into someone all while making yourself indispensable. 

But the payoff is bound to be worth it. 

“Sunset,” he says as a reminder. “Don’t be late.”


	5. Chapter 5

For the second night in a row Bruce arms himself with all that is available to him and sneaks out of the Green Zone as the sun begins to sink behind the Gotham skyline. This time, though, he finds someone waiting for him practically a stone’s throw away from the checkpoint.

Jonathan is back in full costume and Bruce thinks that, once night truly falls and he masks his own face with his night vision goggles, the pair of them could make for a rather terrifying sight. If the people they come across won’t talk freely or under threat of violence, then perhaps the answers that they seek really can be scared right out of them.

He feels a strange smile tug at the corner of his mouth despite himself.

He wants to become an unknown figure cloaked in shadows that will be feared by the criminals of Gotham, and he thinks he’s on his way to that end, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t use this unconventional partnership to learn a thing or two from a master of fear while searching for the man who’s currently the closest thing to a father that Bruce has in his life.

Behind the mask Jonathan’s eyes trace over his face, and Bruce wonders what Jonathan sees when he looks at him. If he sees the potential for darkness that twists inside of him, more blatant than ever now, and if that’s why he suggested this partnership in the first place.

There are times when Jonathan seems almost too adept at reading him, where it’s too easy for him to get under Bruce’s skin. He’s figuring out which of Bruce’s buttons he can press to get the best reactions, and with the questions he’s going to ask tonight it’s likely that he’ll only find more fuel for the fire.

It still seems too easy, though, answering questions for aid. Bruce wonders what kind of terrible backup plan Jonathan might have in place if Bruce refuses to answer.

He’s fairly certain that he doesn’t want to find out.

“Are you ready,” Jonathan asks, and Bruce nods.

Jonathan’s eyes flick down briefly, resting on the knife that Bruce once again has holstered against his thigh, and when he looks back up his eyes are sparking with something intense enough that Bruce isn’t sure that he wants to put a name to it. 

People’s attentiveness towards him rarely ended well for him. 

He might even go so far as to say that it never ended well for him.

“Let’s not waste any time, then,” Jonathan’s voice is low in the way he tends to slip into when he’s pleased about something. “I imagine this will take us all night. Out of—” He licks his lips behind the mask, and Bruce’s eyes hone in on the pink of his mouth without meaning to, “—curiosity; do you have any particular plans for that blade of yours, or is it purely for intimidation?”

“I guess we’ll see,” Bruce answers as he strides forward, coming to a stop beside the young man. “It pays to be able to think on your feet out here, and to be prepared for all possibilities.”

Jonathan nods, as if he’s satisfied with Bruce’s answer.

And then they set off.

There’s less chatter on their way to Ottisburg than Bruce had thought there would be. He’d expected a barrage of questions from the start of their encounter, to be honest. Questions about his worst fears and greatest nightmares, where he learned to fight and how he came to be so unexpectedly strong, and maybe even questions about his bank information that would be filed away in Jonathan’s head until reunification happened and he found himself needing funds to go underground.

But for the first thirty minutes of their journey Jonathan, though he casts quick glances in Bruce’s direction with an almost alarming amount of regularity, hardly speaks to him at all except to direct him on which way they would be turning. 

It’s somehow more unnerving than the way he often pushes himself in Bruce’s space while speaking of things that he had no business bringing up.

And Bruce shouldn’t care. He should be grateful for the silence. The less questions that Jonathan asks the better for him and the more they can both focus on the task that has brought them together, but it feels bizarre for Jonathan to be keeping mostly to himself. Maybe they had fallen into a routine after all if Bruce is actually missing the invasive interactions that Jonathan and he usually go through.

And in the back of his mind he wonders if maybe someone would have been jealous of that, and the familiarity that it signified.

The feeling of his lips pulling into a scowl makes him wish he hadn’t thought about it, about him, about _them_ , at all, and he pushes his night vision goggles down over his face before Jonathan has the chance to look over at him and analyze his expression. 

He always seemed a little too satisfied whenever Bruce was angry.

Bruce’s anger and fear and desperation have been welling up inside of him for days, and it takes very little for it to all start spilling out in a violent rush. He can’t afford to let it get the better of him, not when he knows that Jonathan is right here watching him, studying him, mentally taking him apart to try and find out how he works and what drives him.

He needs to control it. He has to control it. 

Jonathan is going to learn too much about him already during this partnership. Bruce needs to keep some things to himself. 

It’s when they reach the outskirts of Ottisburg that Jonathan finally starts talking.

“We won’t be searching my parts of the city any more. Anyone who we encounter out here will, in all likelihood, try to hurt us.”

“They can try all they like.” Perhaps Bruce is being foolish for disregarding his own safety, but he’s long past being afraid of any stray gang members that may haunt the streets of the Dark Zone. Besides, someone much more frightening and powerful than them was here with him, was allied with him, and Bruce wasn’t exactly a normal Gotham citizen, either. “That doesn’t mean they’ll succeed.”

Jonathan chuckles. “I doubt they will. If they get too close to me they’ll regret it within the span of one breath, and if they get too close to you…” His eyes take a slow trip from Bruce’s face to his boots, then back up. Again, Bruce is reminded of the days where he was playing at being a partying billionaire brat, and the way that people would sometimes look him over with undisguised interest. The flirtatious undertones of Jonathan’s words and actions towards him are only becoming more apparent as time goes on, and Bruce finds himself distantly wondering if it really is just a game to Jonathan, or if there might actually be something sincere to it. “Well, I know what you’re capable of when you’re not in a mood to hold back.”

Bruce’s lips purse into a tight frown.

“You have no idea what I’m capable of.”

Jonathan tilts his head to the side, and his eyes become even more piercing.

“I would wager that I do, but in the interest of appeasing my curiosity I’ll have you answer my first question of the night.” Jonathan steps closer, and Bruce finds himself relieved that his goggles are already in place. He feels more closed off with his face half-covered. He feels less like Bruce and more like the figure that he’d seen when Ivy had almost killed him. More like the person who he is meant to become.

He doesn’t react, outwardly in any case, when Jonathan comes to a stop directly in front of him.

His eyes are so vivid against the black that’s been smeared around them.

Why is Bruce even taking notice of his eyes? He has far more important things to focus his attentions on. He gives himself a mental shake and braces for the first of Jonathan’s questions. 

“Someone like you should have grown up to be soft around the edges. Weak, easy to torment, the usual song and dance of the conceited Gotham elite. But you are capable of so much more than any of them could ever be. Who taught you how to fight?”

“The first person to teach me was Alfred.”

“Oh?”

“And if you want to know who came after that counts as a second question. Stop stalling, let’s get to work.” Bruce brushes past him, their shoulders grazing against each other’s, and he’s fairly certain that he hears Jonathan chuckle in response to his abruptness. 

“Very well.”

They roam up and down streets, and sneak in and out of buildings. In the case of the few people that they do encounter Jonathan’s reputation seems to precede him, and they tend to throw their quickly emptied hands in the air and promise to do whatever he wants so long as he doesn’t spray or kill them while barely sparing Bruce a second glance.

Bruce is going to have to build himself a reputation like this too, eventually. 

He looks Jonathan up and down, and even in the dark he couldn’t be mistaken for any other Gotham villain. Jonathan has become a symbol; Scarecrow is a nightmare brought to life. His entire being represents what he once feared the most. 

Bruce wonders if he shall need to become a symbol, too, something beyond a shadow hidden within the shadows. Tangible enough to be perceived as a real threat, but distinctive enough that he couldn’t be mistaken for anything else.

Again, he finds himself thinking about the figure who’d been encircled by the wings of screeching bats. Who’d dissipated into a swarm which had flown directly towards Bruce before he’d been awoken by the antidote to Ivy’s poison. 

“Question two,” Jonathan’s voice breaks into his thoughts. The latest batch of Dark Zone residents that he’d terrorized had, apparently, not known anything of use either, and he motions for Bruce to follow him towards a sprawling, somewhat dilapidated building. “Who else taught you how to fight?”

And that question requires a far more delicately worded answer than the first, thankfully Bruce has been preparing himself for it.

“For a period of time I was pulled out of Gotham on the order of someone who saw a great deal of potential in me. I stayed with one of his followers, and he oversaw all of my learning.”

“Now you’re just being intentionally vague,” Jonathan comments, though there is thankfully no irritation in his tone. Perhaps he’s just pleased that Bruce is bothering to answer at all, or perhaps he’s not actually interested in the answer, just in making Bruce uncomfortable in the process of answering. He and Bruce sneak along the outside of the building and peer in through the dirty windows to catch sight of people moving around in the dark inside.

“What potential did this nameless person see in you?”

“He saw me as his successor,” Bruce answers with no small amount of difficulty. He cannot force himself to utter the word heir, not when it came to Ra’s. “He saw me as a Dark Knight.”

Jonathan seems to perk up at the mention of the title Ra’s had chosen for him, and he casts a sideways glance at Bruce. 

“A Dark Knight?” He hums in consideration. “It suits you.”

And Bruce should feel irritated at the idea that Ra’s’ vision of him was fitting, but Jonathan doesn’t know about that fraught time in his history and he, in all likelihood, thinks of it as some kind of compliment. It is surprisingly not-difficult for Bruce to take his word at face value, at least on this. 

He should probably take that as a sign that he’s becoming a little too friendly with someone who is capable of, and has committed, so many atrocities. Jonathan’s admittedly tragic past and his mostly unassuming appearance beneath the guise of the Scarecrow didn’t wash away what he’d done or who he’d willingly worked with. But still, when Bruce looks at Jonathan he sees something familiar.

A distorted reflection, but a reflection all the same.

Hadn’t he wondered, not long ago, if he would have turned out more like Jonathan if he hadn’t had Alfred’s support during his darkest moments?

Bruce remembers the knife that he has strapped to his thigh and thinks that, at this point in time, he has no business casting stones. Not when he was willing to do practically anything to get Alfred back safely. He won’t kill, but…

How far would he go, was he capable of going, if it meant Alfred would be safe beside him again?

He’s not sure and that, too, is something that scares him.

But he can’t linger on such thoughts, lest Jonathan senses it and makes an attempt to exploit the weakness. 

“You sneak in from the ground level, I’ll break in from above,” Bruce orders as he takes a step back, casting his gaze towards the roof to look for a decent spot to aim. “It looks like there’s a dozen or so people in there.” With the pair of them so heavily outnumbered it was unlikely that Jonathan’s mere presence would be enough to make the ones inside willingly part with any information that they might have. “Let’s shake them up a bit before we interrogate them.”

“I like the way you think, baby,” Jonathan says, and Bruce’s lips twitch into a half smile that he quickly smothers.

He doesn’t have time for this—whatever this actually is—and he can’t let Jonathan distract him from what needs to be done.

Bruce digs into one of the pouches of his harness and holds out his closed fist to Jonathan, who very slowly reaches out to take what is being offered. 

Bruce presses two smoke bombs into his hand. Jonathan’s long fingers curl very slowly around them, and the metal tips of his aerosolizer scratches lightly against Bruce’s palm at the movement. 

Bruce feels himself break out into goosebumps, more at the barely-there sensation than out of fear of Jonathan’s toxin.

He’s pretty sure that if Jonathan was going to spray him he would have done it long before now. 

“A special gift just for me?” The humor is, as usual, all too evident in Jonathan’s tone. “You shouldn’t have.”

“Use them wisely, Jonathan. Or not at all, if you can. Don’t make me regret giving them to you.”

“Of course,” he says a little too agreeably.

Bruce would rather not add anything into Jonathan’s arsenal, but Jonathan has his fear-toxin and his scythe, which are close to mid-range weapons _at best_ , and the people inside might have guns and bullets.

And Bruce would really rather Jonathan not get shot out here. Or at all. If he has to part with a few smoke bombs to ensure that Jonathan can keep himself concealed should someone with an itchy trigger finger start pointing around, well, it’s worth it.

He takes his grappling hook canon from his harness, and he pushes his night vision goggles up into his curls so that Jonathan can be fully aware of the weight of his gaze as he tells him, “don’t kill anyone.”

Jonathan sighs as if Bruce has asked him to do something tedious, or maybe like he’s disappointed in Bruce’s lack of outright bloodlust. Either way, it’s grating.

“Don’t,” he repeats firmly, and then he settles his goggles back over his eyes. “I’ll be watching.”

He fires the grappling hook before Jonathan has a chance to respond, and soon he is soaring.

This time when he looks down from a rooftop and finds the sight of Jonathan looking up at him his breath doesn’t catch in his throat. He does, however, feel somewhat exhilarated. 

He steadfastly tells himself that the sensation is merely leftover from his quick ascension through the air, but in the back of his mind he wonders if he’s not being disingenuous towards himself by finding such a convenient excuse. 

He puts that thought on the backburner, where it belongs, then he turns around to begin searching for a way in.


	6. Chapter 6

Good old run-down Gotham architecture. So many buildings that aren’t in the richer parts of the city had already fallen into disrepair long before Gotham had been cut off from the mainland, and they’d become even more dilapidated without anyone around to ensure that they were fit enough to avoid demolition. 

There’s broken glass, a rusted staircase, holes in the drywall and huge gaps in the first floor’s ceiling that were caused by, if Jonathan were to take a guess, excessive water damage eating away at the integrity of the structure which went on, ignored, until people began to actually fall through the weakened spots.

It’s a perfect setting, really, for his kind of work.

For their kind of work.

He skims his feet lightly across the floor, a whisper of barely-there noise, meanwhile from above there’s a soft, quick shuffling.

The people standing in a loose circle in the centre of the main room react to it; not out of fear, not yet, just out of curiosity. They cock their heads to the side to listen closer, convincing themselves it’s just raccoons or possums, or whatever other wild animals who might have managed to sneak inside before. 

The quiet sounds, barely discernible over their hushed voices, go on for a few minutes, easing them into the belief that nothing is amiss. 

Then there’s a metallic clink—like a nail or a coin has been dropped through one of the holes in the ceiling—and while every persons’ eyes are drawn to the noise, a little more on edge than they had been before, Jonathan slips towards their stockpile of supplies and rearranges a few things before slipping back into the most shadowed corners of the room. He circles around them in the dark, carefully taking them in.

A few people, the more seasoned ones among them, still appear unbothered, but there is more than enough unease emanating from the rest to satisfy Jonathan.

There’s a loud thump from upstairs. Two of them actually jump at the noise.

Jonathan feels his lips stretch into a satisfied smile. 

“Okay, that’s it, someone go up there to shoot the racoon,” someone orders, and two of them nod and make their way towards the rusted staircase. The rest of the group watches them go, and Jonathan slinks closer to the supplies for a second time. 

He finds their flashlights, and he takes out the batteries of all but one, which he takes for himself on the chance that it might be of use. 

It only takes a few minutes for the ones who’d left to search the top floor to return, and as they come down the rusted staircase one of them calls out, “there was nothing up there!”

“Did you actually look? Or were you too afraid of the dark?”

“Shut up! We looked, it must have gone back outside when it heard us coming.”

There’s another thump from upstairs.

“What was that?”

“Would someone please just go and shoot whatever the fuck is up there?”

More people break off from the group to head upstairs and before they start climbing Jonathan softly drags his scythe along the ground, producing a nails-on-a-chalkboard sort of screech that makes everyone left go tense.

“What the fuck was that?”

“Guys, what if—what if this is what’s been taking people?”

Taking people?

How very interesting.

“That’s just a stupid story, man. Whatever started happening to the Chessman gang it’s not any of our business.”

“But I heard that it’s not just the Chessman gang anymore!”

There’s a loud clatter. Something has been pushed down the stairs.

“Guys?”

“Will someone just go and shoot what’s up there! Fuck, I’ll do it myself, you wimps.”

The circle breaks completely. A few more people make their way towards the stairs and the group that stays behind grabs their flashlights and huddle closer.

“We’ve got to conserve batteries, so just one at a time, okay?” There’s a soft click, but the darkness continues on, unbroken. “This one’s dead.”

“Mine too.”

There’s more frantic clicking with no ensuing beams of light.

“Guys, all the flashlights are busted.”

“They were working fine just an hour ago!”

There’s an eerie, echoing noise, and everyone left on the first floor casts their gaze around frantically, but they foolishly don’t look up. 

Jonathan does.

Through the ragged edges of the broken ceiling he can barely spot a shadow within shadows, a dark smear of movement hidden inside of an equally dark environment. 

An agent of fear, much like himself. 

Jonathan has to hold back a delighted laugh.

Then Bruce drops through the hole in the ceiling, and Jonathan rushes forward.

And then the screaming starts.

Bruce is something of a force of nature when he’s swathed in shadows. They both are. Between the pair of them the ones who had been left on the first floor are easily dealt with, and the ones who begin descending down the rusted staircase are no match for them, either. It’s a heady experience, to create so much terror without even using his fear toxin, and Jonathan knows that he wouldn’t have been able to pull something quite this overwhelming off by himself. Bruce is a good partner. The best partner. They work too well together for Jonathan to be able to let it go, to let him go, when all is said and done.

Jonathan wonders if Bruce feels the same.

He hopes so.

He grabs one of the men by the scruff of their shift and yanks them back against his chest. His hold could be easily broken, but the blade of his scythe resting against their neck is enough to make them go absolutely still.

Bruce casts a glance over at him and frowns, possibly about to remind Jonathan that he wasn’t supposed to kill anyone. Jonathan has half a mind to say that Bruce hadn’t said anything about threatening death, but he’s not interested in initiating a fun little spat right now.

“This one was talking about people disappearing. I figured you may want to ask him some questions.”

Bruce’s expression shifts briefly, mouth parting slightly as if shocked at Jonathan’s thoughtfulness. Then it smooths back out into something that promises ruin as he begins to stalk forward. Bruce, all in black with most of his face concealed and a snarl on his mouth, looks lethal.

What must it be like; to be trapped between the Scarecrow and this man made of shadows?

Terrifying beyond measure if the captured man’s quick, shallow breathing and nervous squirming are any indication.

Bruce comes to a stop before them, and Jonathan has to hold back another laugh at the formidable pair that they make.

He never really understood the term ‘power couple’ before, but…

Hmm…

There was an idea…

“People have been going missing?” Bruce’s voice is lowered into something like a growl, probably to help conceal his identity, and Jonathan honestly thinks he could listen to him talk like that for ages.

The man caught up in his clutches squirms again, nodding vigorously. “Y-yes.”

“How do you know this? Who’s gone missing? How many?”

“I don’t know any specifics! I only know anything because people talk. First it was just members of the Chessmen gang disappearing, so who cares, right? More territory for the rest of us to take. But I’ve heard that other people are getting lost too; no bodies found, no signs of struggle, no witnesses. They just vanish.”

“And what locations do they vanish from?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know! If I knew I would tell you, but I really don’t know!” He dissolves into hysterics, and Bruce lets out a sigh.

“Let him go, we’ve got work to do.”

“If that’s what you really want, baby.”

Bruce’s frown is directed at him again, and Jonathan feels his lips pull into a wide smile. He can imagine exactly how dark and stormy Bruce’s eyes must be behind his goggles.

“Scarecrow,” he says warningly. Jonathan feels a bit of a rush at Bruce using his title, and he drops his scythe and pushes the man aside. He doesn’t turn to watch as he runs away, and neither does Bruce.

What a delightful thrill this has all turned out to be.

“So,” Jonathan starts, as casually as he can manage, “it seems as if there’s more than one person vanishing without a trace in this city. That’s too clean for most of the gangs around here, really.” Jonathan’s mind whirls with ideas and theories. “There’s not many people with a delicate touch out here, if you know what I mean.”

Bruce takes a step closer to him. Jonathan wants to reach out a take his goggles off before removing his own mask and then watch Bruce’s expression shift as he leans in— “What are you suggesting?”

Jonathan hums under his breath. “If the people who took Alfred are the same people who’ve been taking gang members then they’re probably more of a force to be reckoned with than we initially thought. Who’s capable of just taking groups of violent, unwilling, armed people off of the street? Who could get away with it without enough of a fight being put up that attention wouldn’t be drawn to them?”

Not many people, surely.

And only one comes to Jonathan’s mind.

“Stop trying to be mysterious and tell me what you’re thinking, Jonathan.”

“Before that; a question.”

Bruce crosses his arms and sighs, “fine, fine. What is it?”

“Why did you leave that bottle of painkillers for me after our second altercation?”

Bruce is quiet for a long moment, as if weighing his answer carefully. The fact that he doesn’t answer straight away makes Jonathan think there must be something to it, something that Bruce wants to hide.

And Jonathan is going to figure out what it is that he’s trying to conceal. 

“I felt… Bad. About how rough I was with you,” he answers stiltedly. “I didn’t mean to shake you up quite so hard.”

“An attempt to make amends, then?” That seemed par the course for Bruce. Vicious, but sweet. Lovely, but dangerous. “You didn’t leave anything like that with my followers who you were even rougher with.”

“Your followers aren’t you,” Bruce says, then he seems to realize the familiar, almost intimate, implications of that statement, and he quickly tacks on, “I don’t know anything about them behind their masks.”

But he’d barely known anything about Jonathan back then, either. Not to be skeptical, but, well, Jonathan thinks that there’s more to it than Bruce is letting on.

Bruce stares at him, obviously expecting Jonathan to start talking. He supposes he can give Bruce what he wants, considering that his answer has shed a bit of light on something that Jonathan wants to uncover.

“Hypnotized people don’t put up much of a fight,” he offers, “especially not when they’ve been put under the thrall of Jervis Tetch.”

It was the only thing that made sense. Who else would be able to snatch gang members right off of the streets without getting caught?

“What would he want with Alfred?”

“I’m not a mind reader. Maybe it was just a case of wrong place, wrong time. Perhaps he tried to interfere with a kidnapping attempt, or something of that ilk. In any case, Tetch is probably the best lead we have.”

“Then let’s find him.” Bruce moves to brush past him, but Jonathan reaches out a hand to grab his shoulder.

“It’s almost dawn. What do you think is going to happen if your friends back in the Green Zone find out that you’re running around in the dark? If they come looking for you out here and find you with me…” Jonathan chuckles dryly. “What would they say? What would they do? It’s better for you to go back to your usual daytime routine. I’ll meet you again tonight. Same place, same time, and we can go hunting for Tetch together.”

Bruce pushes his goggles up into his hair, gaze briefly drawn to a broken window. The Gotham skyline has the slightest hints of pinks and oranges on the horizon and the warm, though dim, light paints delicate highlights on Bruce’s face.

“I guess you’re right.” Bruce turns back to him, expression stony. Jonathan wonders if he’s thinking about the cost of the next night of assistance, or about how so much had been accomplished between sunset and sunrise for the price of only a handful of answers. Even if Jonathan wants to stay in Bruce’s good books, and doesn’t want to make him angry, he doesn’t think a third night of questions is quite enough in terms of payment.

He starts thinking about what he can get away with asking for, and he almost misses Bruce say, softly, “thanks for your help tonight.”

But he absolutely. 

Does. 

Not. 

Fail to notice the way that Bruce quickly darts forward.

To press a kiss to his mask-covered cheek. 

Jonathan feels like he’s maybe going to combust, but he tries not to let it show because when Bruce pulls back he gazes at Jonathan in a considering manner. Jonathan finds himself, all at once, grateful and unhappy that his mask is still on.

“I’ll see you at sunset,” Bruce tells him, and then he just starts jogging away as if he hasn’t made Jonathan want to—want to—

Melt.

Or pin Bruce to a wall and kiss him more, harder, longer, damn the consequences.

Jonathan watches him go. His face is hot, his hand presses against his covered cheek, and he thinks that he knows what he’s going to take for payment for his services tonight.

Turnabout was fair play, so on and so forth, and if he doesn’t return this particular favour he may as well just resolve that he’s never going to get anything important done ever again because this is all he’s going to be able to think about.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am prepping to go on vacation so it'll probably be a few weeks until I come back to this but hang in there, I promise I'll return. :)

Bruce wonders, strangely anxious, if he’d made a misstep in the morning before he’d left for the Green Zone.

Working with Jonathan had gone better than expected, and he always acted so oddly flirty around Bruce, and Bruce had been so happy to finally have some kind of lead on finding Alfred… Plus, he’d been curious about what his own reaction might be to pressing a kiss on Jonathan’s burlap covered cheek—if the odd, fluttery feeling he was starting to get would resolve itself or if he’d feel warm like the time in the alley when his lips had been close enough to brush against the mouth of Jonathan’s mask as he spoke—not to mention what Jonathan’s reaction would be.

But he was always so difficult to read behind the mask, and Bruce had felt doubly foolish when he couldn’t tell if Jonathan’s reaction to the affectionate gesture was positive or negative. 

He hopes that the action he’d made on a split-second whim doesn’t negatively affect their partnership.

Bruce sneaks out of the Green Zone at sunset and makes his way to the place where Jonathan had been waiting for him yesterday. He’s in the same spot as before, with a few small differences.

His scythe is propped up against the building instead of in his hands, and he isn’t wearing his mask. 

Bruce slows his approach, feeling somewhat wary. Seeing Jonathan’s true face always seemed to bring something unexpected out in him. It’s not that it made it easier to forget what he was capable of, because Bruce knows better, now, not to take him at face value and underestimate him. He just seemed so… Different when he was unmasked. A young man with a tragic story that Bruce could empathize with a little too strongly. It was easier to remember his past hardships when he wasn’t masquerading as his own personal demon. It was easier to remember what lead him towards the path that he was currently on.

He’d been a victim of tragedy, and then a victim of the corruption in Arkham. If the world were a kinder place perhaps he would have never become the Scarecrow. 

Jonathan turns towards him, and Bruce stops just beyond arm’s reach.

“Good evening Jonathan,” he greets, eyes carefully scanning his face for a sign that anything might be off. He tenses when Jonathan steps towards him but he holds his ground. Jonathan doesn’t wind up to punch him, or aim his aerosolizer at his face, he—

Gently takes Bruce’s face in his hands and firmly presses their lips together.

Oh, Bruce thinks, and after a moment his eyes fall shut. He tilts his head, pressing back lightly, and he can feel Jonathan sigh against him. One of Jonathan’s hands leaves his face to rest on the curve of his lower back and Bruce finds himself raising his own hands to tentatively wind them into Jonathan’s hair.

It’s soft.

It’s nice.

He can feel Jonathan’s lips pull into a smile before he takes a step back. The hand resting against Bruce’s back slips away but the one on his face stays put, and Jonathan’s thumb softly grazes against Bruce’s bottom lip. 

“Hello baby,” he murmurs, eyes half open but bright and alert as they trace a piercing path over Bruce’s face. “Are you ready to go on a hunt?”

“Yes,” Bruce answers, a little more breathless than he’d like as he pulls his hands out of Jonathan’s hair. Jonathan’s eyes gleam with something that Bruce might have privately found a little unsettling if they hadn’t just shared a kiss. He pulls his googles over his eyes and finds himself wishing that they covered his face a little more, since he can feel how hot his cheeks are getting and can only imagine how red they must be. “Let’s hunt.”

They head north for the second night in a row, but Jonathan sticks much, much closer to Bruce’s side as they head into The Bowery than he had previously. 

Even in such a dire situation, Bruce can’t help but think that it’s kind of… Sweet.

They scour the streets, and alleys, and buildings for any sign of Alfred, or hypnotized people, or Tetch. The further north they head, the more uneasy Bruce begins to feel.

A dozen city blocks away, in an unassuming alley that hadn’t seemed so very significant or scary at the time, Bruce’s childhood free from trauma had come to an abrupt end. 

And something inside of him, something that could be dark and frightening, was born in the shadows of that night.

The anniversary, he recalls with an uncomfortable twisting in his chest, couldn’t have been very far off. He’s been too preoccupied lately to pay attention to the passage of time, days of searching have blurred together into what feels like an endless endeavor, but the knowledge that he might be without Alfred on the anniversary for the first time since his parents had been murdered makes him feel incredibly uneasy.

What kind of cruel twist of fate would take Alfred from his side so close to the date that had changed the entire course of Bruce’s life?

They search another street and find nothing. 

Another street down, and the pair of thugs who they’d run into hadn’t had any useful information.

Another block is gone over with a fine-tooth comb, and Bruce’s unease translates itself into a quick heartbeat and short, shallow breaths.

He turns onto the next block—

Jonathan tugs on his hand and Bruce stumbles back.

“My followers are already searching that part of the city. We’re heading up to Sheldon Park.”

Relief floods through Bruce, and whether Jonathan had planned it on purpose or not he finds himself grateful for the excuse to stay as far away from that place as he can.

They skim the edge of Robbinsville as they head towards Sheldon Park, and still, they find nothing, and no one who they corner seems to know anything.

It’s difficult not to feel discouraged, especially when just twenty-four hours ago Bruce had felt a flare of hope that was now being smothered by his own pessimism. He clenches his fists at his sides as the sky in the east begins to show the faintest traces of the approaching dawn, and he has to curb the urge to lash out. Too much time has passed, he wants Alfred back now, he wants to find who took him, and whoever may have helped, and make them pay dearly for this abominable crime, he wants—

Jonathan lays a hand on his shoulder. Bruce doesn’t relax, but he doesn’t slap his hand away, either.

He feels like he’s crumbling around the edges. Like Alfred is what has been keeping him together ever since the night his parents died. Like he’s cracking and breaking and turning into something that he won’t be able to stand the sight of.

Like the reflection he’d seen in that maze of mirrors, holding a shard aloft and preparing to take a life. 

Is that what he’ll become if he doesn’t get Alfred back?

“Go back to the Green Zone, get some rest.”

“I don’t think that I can.”

He’s not sure how much longer he can hold on.

“We’ll find him, Bruce.” His tone isn’t reassuring so much as it is confident, which is a little more persuasive to Bruce at the moment. “Tetch is a megalomaniac, he can’t hide himself away for long.”

“But why Alfred? If he’s been going after gang members how did Alfred get caught up in it?”

“Because life is cruel,” Jonathan answers as his hand falls away from Bruce’s shoulder.

It is. Bruce wishes it weren’t.

They’d both be leading very different lives if it weren’t.

What would they have turned out like, if they’d had normal childhoods? 

“My followers are searching Robbinsville, Coventry, and parts of the Upper East Side,” Jonathan says as he takes off his mask. “Between us and what the GCPD have searched in the south there must not be many places left.”

“There’s not.” Bruce thinks about his map, and the growing number of ‘x’s littering over the surface. Between two very different search parties over half of the island has been covered, at least aboveground. After another day and night of searching they’ll have to start looking through the old subway tunnels. 

“Then perhaps we didn’t find him yet, but today is a new day, and if you’re going to go running around with the GCPD after searching with me all night you’re going to need to sleep for a few hours, at least.” Jonathan’s hands graze against Bruce’s cheeks as he grabs onto the sides of his night vision goggles. Bruce stays still as Jonathan pushes them up into his hair.

“Same time tonight?” The rough fabric of Jonathan’s gloves brushes over Bruce’s face as he cups Bruce’s chin in one of his hands, and Bruce feels his eyes flutter half-shut. 

He’s scared, and angry, and he wants more than anything for Alfred to return. He should be focused solely on that. Nothing else should matter.

But he can’t find it in himself to disregard this. To pretend that he’s indifferent to whatever is happening between himself and Jonathan when it’s more obvious than ever that there’s something there.

“Same time tonight,” Bruce answers, and he’s not surprised when Jonathan leans in for another kiss. Their lips brush, his heart skips in his chest, and he feels warm and good.

And strangely safe.

He breaks the kiss and tries not to feel too embarrassed by the way Jonathan is looking at him. He’s as intense as ever, but there’s something softening the edges of his features. It’s almost enough for Bruce to feel like they’re the characters in some kind of rom-com. Star-crossed lovers, players on opposing sides, brought together for this one task…

And torn apart once it’s over; because Jonathan is Scarecrow and Bruce is… Bruce. He’s not entirely sure what drew Jonathan to the idea of forming this partnership, but he knows well enough that it wasn’t out of the goodness of his heart. Once Alfred has been found they’ll end up going their separate ways, and it could be ages until they see each other again. Maybe not until reunification. Maybe not until Jonathan’s return to Arkham put him in the headlines along with every other criminal who was currently taking advantage of their separation from the mainland. 

The realization, which should be more common sense than anything, aches more than it should when considering the scant amount of time that they’ve been allies. 

Bruce takes a quick step back and pivots, hoping that Jonathan didn’t catch sight of anything too incriminating on his face. “Goodbye Jonathan, I’ll see you tonight.”

“Bye, baby,” Jonathan calls after him.

Bruce has gotten far too used to the pet-name. He might even miss being called it once Jonathan has slipped into the dark to spread fear after he’s done helping Bruce on his search.

Bruce will miss him, too.

He grits his teeth and tries not to think about it as he heads back to the Green Zone. He sneaks in as easily as he’d snuck out, and he makes his way to the apartment he and Alfred had been staying at. There are little traces of Alfred hidden away inside, nothing so obvious as personal effects, but in the organization of their sparse belongings. The way he’d laid out the knives next to the cutting board in the particular way he liked, the way he’d always set the table as properly as he could, the way he’d kept track of time, not wanting to lose himself in the passage of dreary days that never seemed to get better…

He stares at the little calendar propped up on the kitchen table, with little strikes crossing out each day until Alfred had gone missing.

Bruce looks at the dates that have been left blank ever since, and tries to recall how many days he’s been searching.

Day one and day two, with the GCPD. The night of day two was spent mostly on his own.

The nights of day three and four with Jonathan.

And today was the dawning of day 5.

That made today…

June 26th.

Bruce bites his lip to stifle a scream.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A while back I was reading a Scarecrow wiki and hoNESTLY, all of this 'only Batman is capable of inflicting fear on him' stuff is, wow. Apparently in the Blackest Night storyline it's revealed that overexposure to his own fear-toxin means that he essentially doesn't feel anything _except_ for when he's facing Batman and I am, hhhhh, living for this.
> 
> Also read a line that was essentially: he's obsessed with feeling fear, and since Batman makes him feel fear he purposefully seeks him out and, gosh, Jonathan Crane, SIR.
> 
> That was my really long way of saying; let's make Jonathan feel a bit of fear. (For another person, because _character development_.)
> 
> Also, this part is starting to come to a close but I might... Be planning another part... Because I can? Anyways, you'll see.
> 
> xoxo

It’s sunset. Bruce is late.

Bruce has never been late, plus his meticulous manner makes him the sort of person who Jonathan assumes absolutely has to be punctual at all times. 

It’s possible that he’s gotten caught up in something, it’s possible that he’ll only need a few more minutes to take his place at Jonathan’s side, but Jonathan is too eager to see him again to stay put.

He has news; news that he’s sure Bruce wouldn’t want to wait for. 

Hours of searching, and too much time spent both threatening and directing his followers to do something that they weren’t necessarily eager to do, and it has finally paid off.

One of his followers had seem plumes of vapor rising from somewhere within Robbinsville. They had gone in for a better look and had found the Ace Chemicals plant was, mysteriously, back in production. 

And that wasn’t all they had found. The people at work drifted around as if in a daze, their eyes hooded and their movements somewhat stiff, but what was really important was what his follower had _heard._

‘Tick tock the chemical stock shall give our Gotham an aftershock.’

They might not have actually seen Tetch, but the state of the workers and the rhyming was really all the proof that Jonathan needed regarding his involvement. 

Chemicals and their safe handling weren’t exactly Tetch’s forte—that had been Scarecrow and Freeze’s job back when Jerome had lured them all into being temporary team players—so he must have partnered up with someone. Jonathan and Bruce could figure out the ‘who’ and the ‘why’ later, together.

But the first order of business was finding Bruce in the Green Zone, and Jonathan had a decent guess as to where he might be. He dismantles his grim uniform and tucks it away in an understated office building, keeping only his aerosolizing gloves and fear-toxin on him, and once he is back outside masquerading as the person who he used to be Bruce still has not appeared.

He isn’t worried, he tells himself, even though something apprehensive begins to gnaw inside of him. Worry and nervousness lead into fear, and he lives an existence free from fear.

Jonathan quickly slips through the blockade that had been set up—not quite as graceful as he had been the last time that he’d broken through the barricades to see Bruce—and makes his way towards the precinct. 

He sneaks in, easily blending into the flow of people when unmasked. His gaze darts around quickly as he looks out for not only Bruce, but anyone else who might happen to know what his face under the mask looks like. It wouldn’t do to get arrested now when Jonathan was so close to something extraordinary. 

He'd kissed Bruce.

Bruce had kissed back.

Jonathan has wanted so much—wanted to figure Bruce out, discover what made him tick, learn his secrets, have him as a partner—but he wants even more, now. Working with Bruce was spectacular, but kissing him was like coming home, or finding a safe port in a storm, or some other comparison that was so ridiculously sweet that Jonathan almost couldn’t believe that he was capable of feeling such things. His interest in Bruce, who had once just been a mysterious figure in the shadows, had grown so swiftly, had morphed into something that was painstakingly obvious in hindsight.

They’re allied for now, but Jonathan knows that he won’t have the excuse of Alfred’s disappearance to keep close to Bruce for much longer. Once their unifying task is completed Jonathan doesn’t _want_ to part ways as if their partnership never happened. He _can’t_. He _refuses_ to. The world, this city, has taken so much from Jonathan, it’s only fair that he gets to keep one good thing for himself.

They’ll have some issues to work out, obviously, because Jonathan is the sort of person who’s called the Dark Zone his home ever since the bridges blew and Bruce is the sort who’s tied to the Green Zone even though he could manage so well out in the dark. But they can figure it out.

Because Bruce kissed him back. 

Jonathan casts another glance around but doesn’t find a trace of Bruce anywhere, so he slips back out before anyone gets the idea to approach him to ask if he needs assistance or looks too closely at his gloved hands. 

He’s still not worried, he tells himself. Bruce was far more than capable of looking after himself; he knows this, he’s seen it, it’s how his interest in Bruce was originally piqued. 

But the uneasy feeling inside of him intensifies. 

He has a vague idea about where Bruce is staying while unable to make it back to Wayne Manor, and he is quick to cut through side streets and alleys to hasten his journey there. It’s in the midst of one such a short-cut that he sees something that makes him abruptly stop in his tracks. 

The front pages of dozens of the same newspaper are plastered onto a wall. Each one proclaims the deaths of Thomas and Martha Wayne in a bold font, and the papers are dated…

June 27th, six years ago. The day right after their murder. 

Today was the 26th. 

Jonathan’s hands slowly curl into tight fists at his sides.

The death of one’s parents was painful enough without having a reminder shoved into your face. If Jonathan had come across a similar spread with the articles about his mother’s or father’s deaths he’s not even sure how he’d react. It’s cruel and calculated—Bruce must regularly pass by this place on his way home from the precinct, which means whoever had done this had been watching him, had been aware of his routine—not to mention the incredibly poor taste of it all. For this stark reminder of loss to be set out for Bruce when he was already dismayed by the loss of—

Jonathan’s thoughts trip up.

It was odd, wasn’t it, that Bruce would lose Alfred so soon before this grim anniversary? Life was cruel, Jonathan would be the first to admit it, but that cruelty wasn’t always coincidental. Where would Bruce go after catching sight of this terrible display? What would be going through his head? Who would spend time on this sort of undertaking? Bruce, perhaps, has a few people who fancy themselves as his enemies, but Jonathan knows that Bruce and Tetch have never crossed paths. It made little sense for the Hatter to go out of his way to specifically target someone whose disappearance would hurt Bruce when Tetch held no personal resentment towards him, and there was a strange level of dedication behind this morbid collage. 

A strange level of obsession. 

And who did Jonathan know of that he would consider to be obsessed with Bruce?

First initial was a ‘J’, second was a ‘V’, both should be ghosts…

But maybe one wasn’t.

Despite how quickly rumours of Jeremiah’s demise had spread it wasn’t as if it was unheard of for the dead to come back to life in this city. 

Jonathan’s mind surges, his heart beginning to pick up speed as he connects the dots that have been laid out before him. 

Bruce wasn’t waiting for him, wasn’t at the precinct, and probably wasn’t at the place he was currently calling home. Someone had plastered an alley wall with newspapers about the Wayne murders on the anniversary of their deaths. Someone had taken Alfred, rendering Bruce without his most steadfast companion, only a few days before this occurred.

Someone had to be working with Tetch. Someone who had no qualms about partnering with one of Jerome’s previous companions so long as it worked out in his favour. Someone who had ordered Alfred to be taken before. 

Someone who had always, and would always, be fixated on Bruce Wayne.

Jonathan whirls away from the grim display and storms out of the alley.

If Jonathan’s instincts are right, if it is Jeremiah who’s behind this, then there’s no use searching for him. He obviously knew how to lay low and stay hidden, he’d concealed his presence in the Dark Zone for months without being found.

But Jonathan knows where Tetch is, and that’s enough.

He’s going to make sure of it.

The sun has almost fully sunk behind the Gotham skyline when Jonathan makes it out of the Green Zone. In the growing shadows of the oncoming night he slips back into his Scarecrow attire and grips onto his scythe tightly as he begins his trek north. 

He doesn’t have time to find and rally his followers, though perhaps a few of them will be lingering around the Ace Chemicals plant, curious to know what will come of their several nights of searching. Or perhaps they no longer care and are sick of doing nothing to spread fear like a virus and will leave Jonathan to face this alone. He certainly cannot depend on having their full force behind him, in any case, but he’ll make do. 

Tetch’s power stemmed from his words, and though Jonathan is going to need to pry answers out of him without falling victim to the hypnotist’s usual strategy he’ll find a way.

He’ll have Tetch on the floor, sobbing and screaming over his greatest fear, and he won’t let him have a moment of peace until Jonathan knows enough of what is going on in order to find Bruce.

Maybe afterwards he’ll put him out of his misery. 

His eyes scan the sky as he heads into Robbinsville, eventually catching sight of the vapor that his follower had spoken of as he moves deeper into that part of the city.

Was it and odd coincidence or a knowing ploy that the location that Tetch and his partner were using for their work was within walking distance of Crime Alley?

Jonathan thinks about what Jeremiah had wanted from him when they’d partnered up before the city had been severed from the mainland. Jonathan had been interested about the full effects of his and Jerome’s trap, and intrigued by the proposed experiment of diluting his toxin and having someone exposed to it over a long period of time as opposed to inhaling the full dose all at once.

And he’d been darkly amused by the opportunity to work with the brother who Jerome had left behind to be his legacy. 

A sprawling maze of a building with scenes of torture projected onto the walls. The air inside laced with enough toxin to bring anyone to their knees, and Bruce crying out in a way that had made Jonathan’s blood rush. Jeremiah hadn’t explained what he’d wanted to accomplish, and at the time Jonathan hadn’t cared enough to know the details. He’d been interested in clinically observing and analyzing the effects of his weakened toxin and watching how the test subject’s lucidity began to slowly unravel instead of coming undone all at once. It was research, it wasn’t personal.

Not to him.

Not back then.

But it’s incredibly personal now. 

Night is fully upon the city by the time Jonathan approaches the plant. He slips inside, silent as a shadow, intent on observing all that he can before making a move. As tempting as it is to rush in Jonathan is still on his own while Tetch has a legion of gang-members at his command.

More than that, even.

Because Jeremiah’s right-hand woman is there too, gliding along on roller skates and beating James Gordon with a pipe. 

Jonathan watches it happen with no small amount of indifference, because he knows what it feels like to hate Detective Gordon with every fiber of your being and he can sympathize, really, with the need to break him. He belatedly realizes that Bruce would care about putting a quick end to Gordon’s suffering, but…

Jonathan isn’t Bruce. Two sides of the same coin they may be, but they still had a few obvious differences between them.

Though, as Jonathan watches Tetch and Ecco drag Gordon and his lady-love to a less heavily populated corner of the plant and tie them up, he figures that Bruce would be extremely angry with him if he found out that Jonathan sat back and did nothing while the pair of them were hypnotized to assist with whatever mad scheme was going on here. And Jonathan does not want Bruce to be angry with him, even if he was devastatingly attractive when his eyes sparked with untold danger and vengeance. 

So when Gordon wakes up and starts attempting to provoke Tetch into retracting his loyalty Jonathan reaches into one of his pockets and takes out the special gift that Bruce had given to him a few nights ago.

He throws both of the smoke bombs down between the two pairs and rushes in. With the element of surprise on his side he takes out the biggest threat first; Ecco is more physically capable and brutal than Tetch, and too loyal to Jeremiah to give him up if Jonathan started asking questions. Even with the cover of smoke on his side Ecco, once she realizes she’s being targeted, swings with her pipe and hits him hard enough that Jonathan is sure his ribs will bruise. It’s only by luck that he manages to hit her with his scythe hard enough to stun her, and by the time the smoke has cleared she’s on the ground.

“My dear Scarecrow, interrupting isn’t terribly polite—”

Jonathan grabs Tetch by the lapels of his jacket with one hand and guides the blade of his scythe under his chin.

“Though if you have something to say, I suppose I’ll bite. What are old friends for if not lending an ear, right?”

“Jonathan?” Gordon sounds confused, as he rightfully should. Under different circumstances Jonathan would have gladly stood by and done nothing to assist him.

Perhaps he can still sometimes be good, just like Bruce can sometimes be brutal. They’re not black or white, just different shades of grey on the Gotham spectrum. 

He doesn’t have to _like_ occasionally being good, though. He’ll tolerate it at best.

“I’m busy, Detective Gordon, don’t waste anyone’s time by asking questions that I won’t answer.” Jonathan presses his scythe a little harder against Tetch’s throat, and it feels right to see blood welling up against his blade again. He’d played nice while he was with Bruce, but Bruce wasn’t here right now, and Tetch was somehow involved in his disappearance, and Jonathan will be as vicious as he damn well pleases.

“Hello, old friend,” he greets as calmly as he can manage. “Why don’t you tell me where Bruce Wayne is?”

“Bruce is missing?” Gordon asks, his voice rising in panic. Jonathan and Tetch ignore him. 

“There’s no need for such violent force. The boy is where he belongs, with his parents, of course.”

Jonathan stops breathing, and an icy feeling floods through him.

He’s dead, Jonathan thinks in a fit of sickening realization. Bruce is dead. He’s dead and nothing else matters because—

“Wait! Wait, wait, wait,” Tetch calls out when Jonathan lets out a snarl, ready to make Tetch live the rest of his life in absolute, _agonizing_ fear without reprieve. “Perhaps earlier I should have stated,” the words trip out, panicked and rushed, “not his real parents, but ones that Jeremiah and I created.”

“Tetch,” he grits out, heart hammering, something dark and terrified unravelling in his chest. The growing panic inside of him is almost enough to make him ill. He’s not used to feeling frightened, not anymore. He’s not even scared for himself, and the knowledge of what that means for him leaves him dizzy. “If you don’t tell me where he is I’m going to make you relive Alice’s death for the rest of your miserable life.”

Tetch blinks at him, as if stunned Jonathan would use that against him, and then he says, softly,

“That’s where he is.”

“What?”

“He’s reliving their deaths.”

More connections flicker in Jonathan’s mind, and then—

“Jonathan, watch out!”

He twists away at Gordon’s warning, which is the only thing that saves him from getting a pipe to the head. Ecco had, apparently, been playing possum and biding her time. She swings again and hits Jonathan in the shoulder hard enough that he drops his scythe while Tetch removes himself from the sidelines of their brawl. 

“Bad Scarecrow,” she chides, “trying to mess with boss’s plan. What’s Bruce to you, anyhow?”

Someone worth being afraid for, Jonathan distantly thinks as he lifts his arm and triggers his aerosolizer. Ecco giggles madly and spins to the side to dodge his toxin, then quickly glides away, too fast for Jonathan to catch on foot.

But he doesn’t need to catch her.

He knows where Bruce is going to be, and he burns with rage on Bruce’s behalf.

He can hear Tetch calling out, too far away for his words to be distinct, but he must be bidding his hypnotized masses to come and take care of the three of them once and for all.

Jonathan loathes doing it, but he cuts Gordon and Thompkins free from their bindings. Bruce wouldn’t want them hurt, and Jonathan is unwilling to let Bruce lose even more people that he cares about if he can do something about it. 

And Jonathan wants to be absolutely sure that Jeremiah Valeska is dealt with. If none of his followers are around to help him pry Bruce from Jeremiah’s insane, _undeserving_ clutches then he’ll take what he can get. 

“I’m going to Crime Alley,” he tells them bluntly as he picks up his scythe, “come if you want, but if you try to arrest me, or stop me, I’ll make you regret it.”

He doesn’t wait for them to respond, none of them have time to talk with the ominous sound of multiple footfalls coming closer, but as he turns to find the nearest exit he can see that they’re both following behind him.

He runs out of the plant towards the edge of Robbinsville, ignoring the pain in his side and shoulder, and the way the muscles in his legs start to burn almost as quickly as his lungs.

He hasn’t got time to waste.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Bruce has had such a rough go, time to give this boy a little hope.
> 
> Gosh this chapter was a tough one to hash out. It was hard to find a believable balance, but I think I managed okay. (Also, wow, it's been a while since I attempted to write an action sequence.)  
> Also; I re-read Working with the Dark (because I'm the sort who re-reads their own fanfic, so desperate for rare-pair content am I) and omg Jonathan's progression. I've made him so soft for Bruce, what a sap. These boys, they kill me, I adore them.

Bruce is trapped, is having to experience the worst day of his life all over again, all because Jeremiah couldn’t stand that they weren’t friends and was desperate to try and connect them in other, terrible ways.

The false set of parents, the bombs in his home, the way Alfred had almost been left behind and Bruce had needed to trick him into escaping to safety—

And the theatre. 

Bruce knows that leaving the movie early wasn’t the cause of his parent’s murder. He knows that Matches Malone would have laid in wait and gone through with it no matter what. But Jeremiah’s message; the insinuation that Bruce’s fear had ultimately been the trigger which signaled the end of his childhood free from trauma, bites at him like a thousand needles.

And now Jeremiah stands before him flanked by the mirror-images of Bruce’s parents who he plans to kill in order to bond them through hatred, and that’s not even the grand finale to the twisted night that he has panned.

He announces his intention to have toxic chemicals rain down on the city as if it’s nothing, as if the lives that will be lost because of it mean nothing, and Bruce doesn’t even think he can be reasoned with any more but he can’t keep himself from saying, “Jeremiah, don’t,” even if it’s all for naught. 

Jeremiah shushes him and turns to the dizzying recreation of Bruce’s mother who is placidly standing at his side.

“Never forget,” Jeremiah tells him, his gun raising up, “this is all for you Bruce.”

Bruce cries out and starts running forward even if he knows there’s no way he can make it before Jeremiah pulls the trigger, and—

There’s a crack.

The tail of a whip knocks Jeremiah’s gun out of his hand before he has the chance to shoot, and Bruce is able to tackle Jeremiah down onto the pavement and land a punch against his jaw.

“Run,” he calls to the pair who’d been forced to play along with Jeremiah’s twisted game, hoping that like with Alfred he still has some sway because they, at the very least, really do believe that he’s their son, “it’s not safe here, please leave!” 

They look unsure, and Bruce has to turn his gaze away for a moment because Jeremiah is no longer laying still and stunned underneath him. He almost can’t stomach the thought of having to refer to them as ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ just to get them to leave, but if that was what it took for them to go—

“Thomas, Martha,” Selina calls as she drops down from the fire escape, “I’ll take care of Bruce, you guys get out of here!”

They finally turn away and Bruce wishes he had the breath to tell Selina ‘thank you’, but Jeremiah has a knife under his throat and is forcing him up into a standing position, and then Jeremiah casts a glance to the side, where Selina had dropped, and he quickly slits a long, shallow cut across Bruce’s chest before turning away and running to the mouth of the alley. 

Selina rushes to his side, one shaking hand reaching out to press against the torn fabric of his sweater.

“It’s shallow,” he assures her, gritting his teeth at the sting. Jeremiah could have done much worse. Whatever else he had planned for the night, he wanted Bruce to have a chance at surviving it. “I’m fine, let’s go.”

“Ecco, now!”

Ecco’s attention turns to the device in her hands and Bruce feels his heart lurch into his throat even before he and Selina start to run, but before she can touch any of the buttons she catches something in her peripheral vision which makes her go on the defensive.

Lee Thompkins rushes at her and Ecco almost drops the controller as she dodges before lashing out with a kick that knocks Lee flat on her back. Her attention turns to it again as Jeremiah impatiently snaps her name a second time, but Jim Gordon comes out from behind the corner as well and she blocks a blow, then counters, then slams Jim up against the side of the truck.

Jeremiah’s knife flashes menacingly in his hand as he approaches the scene, and Bruce is more than ready to tackle him to the ground for a second time and make sure he doesn’t get back up, but Jeremiah stumbles to the side to get out of the way of something before he can do any further damage with the blade. 

Bruce can barely see a cloud of vapor, and can’t even hear the familiar hiss of the aerosolizer, but he’s certain that he knows exactly what Jeremiah just dodged.

The shadowy figure that follows out after Jim confirms his suspicions. 

Even outnumbered and cornered neither Jeremiah or Ecco are willing to go down without a fight, but Bruce and Selina have caught up too, and Selina has no qualms with casting her whip forward, letting it wrap around Jeremiah’s leg and pulling hard enough that he loses his balance and falls onto his palms.

Then Jonathan comes forward, raising his scythe in a truly ominous and very real threat, and the words, “don’t kill him,” are falling out of Bruce’s mouth even before he realizes that he’s thinking them.

Even now, he doesn’t want Jeremiah dead.

Jonathan pauses for a split second, then settles for driving the blunt end of his scythe against Jeremiah’s upper back to force him back down from the crouch he’d managed to lift himself into. Jeremiah starts to snarl something at him, but whatever he means to say is lost as Selina lunges at him without mercy, and it only takes a few hits for him to go silent. 

Lee is back up on her feet and she manages to knock the controller out of Ecco’s hands as Ecco dodges an attack from Jim. It cracks open on the ground and she turns tail and runs, perhaps unaware that Jeremiah hadn’t been able to make it out the way they had likely planned, and Jim and Lee both follow after her.

Bruce’s pulse is hammering in his ears as he looks at what lies before him. Selina slowly raises herself up into a standing position, her hands clenched into tight fists at her sides. She casts a glance over to Jonathan, more suspicious than curious, but she says something under her breath to him and Jonathan gives her a curt nod in return before taking a few steps toward Bruce.

“Bruce,” he sounds both out of breath and incredibly concerned as he takes off his mask, and his bright eyes search Bruce’s face intently. “Are you alright?”

“I am now.” Bruce’s eyes flit over to where Selina is standing guard over Jeremiah’s body with one booted foot braced upon his back, then to where Lee and Jim had disappeared in order to follow Ecco on foot, and he really hopes that this signals the end of this stunt and that there aren’t any more terrible surprises waiting in the wings for him.

“Good.” 

Jonathan closes the remaining distance between them quickly and Bruce half-expects a kiss, but instead Jonathan’s arms wind tightly around him and he presses his uncovered face firmly into Bruce’s neck. The embrace is tense—Jonathan’s fingers dig into the back of Bruce’s coat, and Bruce can feel his rapid breaths even through his shirt—as if Jonathan is trying to become as close as he can and has no plans to let go. It feels as desperate as it is affectionate and Bruce is frozen for a few moments by the unexpectedness of the gesture, but he slowly brings his arms around Jonathan’s waist to return the hug. 

As his arms lock around Jonathan’s sides he flinches and hisses under his breath. Bruce’s arms quickly retract and he takes a step back, even as Jonathan’s fingers scrabble at his coat to keep him from going too far, and his eyes worriedly rove over Jonathan’s pinched expression. 

“You’re hurt?”

“It’s nothing,” Jonathan says, and Bruce wants to call him out on the obvious lie, but his hands come to settle on either side of Bruce’s face, and Bruce has one second to process what’s about to happen, and who it’s about to happen in front of, before Jonathan seals their lips together. 

The alley is silent enough that Bruce could hear a pin drop.

Then Selina whistles lowly.

And then someone else obviously has to make their unnecessary opinion known.

“Bruce? What—Scarecrow, _really_?”

Jonathan wraps an arm around Bruce’s waist and shifts them closer together, and Bruce can hear Jeremiah begin to sputter indignantly. Jonathan is likely showing off just to be an ass, but, considering the circumstances, Bruce isn’t quite as irritated about it as he could be.

His eyes drift shut, and he presses back against Jonathan’s mouth as his fingers thread into Jonathan’s soft hair. He can afford one kiss, surely. He deserves one kiss, even. 

“But—but we have a connection! You can’t just ignore that! You _need_ me—”

“Shut your mouth before I shut it for you,” Selina threatens, but instead of staying quiet Jeremiah snarls like a raging beast.

Bruce’s eyes flicker open and in his peripheral vision he can see that Jonathan is flipping Jeremiah off. He breaks the kiss.

“Could you, perhaps, not completely rile up the man who just tried to kill people that he had surgically altered to look like my dead parents right in front of me?”

Jonathan doesn’t look very contrite, though he does send a particularly gruesome glare Jeremiah’s way. Bruce wonders if he regrets not landing a killing blow.

Bruce wonders why Jonathan yielded to his request not to kill him. 

“I’m sorry, baby,” Jonathan says without sounding as if he feels even an ounce of remorse. Perhaps Bruce shouldn’t be too surprised. “But I was worried.” Jonathan presses his lips to Bruce’s forehead, then his cheek, then the skin beneath his ear—definitely no remorse—and Jeremiah hisses something angrily before Selina puts a stop to it. “I’ve been running around since sunset trying to find you.”

Something satisfyingly warm filters through Bruce’s chest, cutting through his slowly growing indignation of feeling as if Jonathan were trying to one-up Jeremiah by being so blatantly affectionate in front of him.

He’d been too caught up in Jeremiah’s scheme to lend much thought to what Jonathan might do when he didn’t show up at their usual spot, but he’s pleasantly surprised. It’s nice to know that there’s one more person in the world who cares when he happens to go missing.

Bruce supposes, in this case, he can forgive Jonathan’s behavior. 

It’s nice, and maybe somewhat relieving, to know that Jonathan missed him, that he’d gone searching for him, that he’d _found_ him and helped him beyond the terms of the deal that they’d struck. That he’d succumbed to Bruce’s rushed request to spare a life even though it would have been easy to ignore.

“Did you find Alfred?”

That he cared.

“I did,” Bruce answers, palpable relief in his tone. Finally, finally, _finally_ he could be sure that Alfred was where he was supposed to be; safe with him. “He’s a little worse for wear, but he’s not under Tetch’s sway anymore.”

“Good,” Jonathan says, then he bites his lip, looking strangely unsure of himself.

The original task they allied themselves for is resolved, now. Bruce has Alfred back, and Jeremiah isn’t going to be slipping away anywhere with Selina ready to pounce on him if he makes a single move, and toxic chemicals aren’t going to rain down on Gotham…

And it would feel wrong if Bruce and Jonathan went on their separate ways now. Even if it’s the only outcome that makes any sense. 

“You came with Detective Gordon and Doctor Thompkins,” Bruce finds himself saying, not sure what else is a safe topic to focus on with their partnership coming to its natural conclusion. “I thought that you hated him?”

“Oh, I do.” Jonathan states with absolutely no guilt in his tone. “But Tetch was about to hypnotize them for some foul purpose or another, and afterwards I couldn’t just leave them tied up for a bunch of gang members to rip apart.”

Bruce masks his surprise, but a curious spark ignites inside of him. 

“You saved them?”

“Well.” Jonathan casts his gaze away, and Bruce watches with no small amount of fascination as his cheeks gain a tinge of colour. He’s never seen Jonathan look embarrassed, and he’s not entirely certain he’ll be able to wipe the sight from his memory. “It’s what you would have wanted, and I—I care about what you want.”

Off to the side Jeremiah hisses like an angry cat, Bruce and Jonathan ignore him.

Bruce can hear Selina mutter, “oh my fucking god,” under her breath, and he ignores her, too. 

“Thank you, Jonathan.” Maybe it’s a sign that Bruce has gotten close to too many people who didn’t actually care about what he wanted—especially considering what he had just gone through—but he’s genuinely touched. And fluttery. And a little too warm in the face. “I care about what you want, too.”

It’s almost painfully true. 

“Thanks.”

There’s a beat of silence.

And then—

“This was _so_ much less awkward when you guys were just macking on each other.”

“I cannot believe this atrocity! It isn’t right. It isn’t _fair_! How could you let yourself get close to someone else when _I_ have been nothing but _devoted_ to you?!” Jeremiah screeches like a jilted lover, as if he has any right to. “Bruce, _you and I cannot exist without each other_. Without me you’re just a—”

Selina stuffs Jeremiah’s own tie into his mouth.

“Hey, freak, I think it’s really damn obvious that he’s not buying what you’re selling.”

Bruce tries not to look too mortified as his cheeks start burning like hot coals.

Bruce ‘getting close’ with Jonathan was… Putting it lightly.

He cares about him. 

He likes him.

He looks up at Jonathan, and he finds that he doesn’t want to say goodbye. Even though they belong on separate sides there’s potential here, between them. Jonathan has been a good partner and Bruce would miss him if they went their separate ways, never to cross paths again. And maybe that’s enough of a reason for him to take a chance.

After this terrible night, after these terrible five days without Alfred, Bruce hopes that one thing can go well for him to help balance out the scales. 

Jonathan is, at the very least, a somewhat better person overall than a lot of the people who Bruce had become close to, only to find out later that they’d had ulterior motives all along. Jonathan hadn’t pretended friendliness at their first meetings; he’d been all barbed insinuations and blunt attacks, actively trying to provoke Bruce to the best of his not-unsubstantial ability. Even during their partnership he had made obvious overtures to ruffle Bruce’s feathers, though far less than Bruce had frankly expected of him. And now… Well, he’d assisted Jim with Tetch and had helped take down Jeremiah even though he wasn’t obligated to and hadn’t even killed him like he’d obviously been preparing to. That had to count for something, right?

“See you at sunset?” He offers lowly. Jonathan can refuse if he wants, Bruce isn’t going to force him into anything, but he thinks it would be nice if they didn’t drift apart. 

Gotham isn’t black or white, it never has been, it’s awash with shades of grey. Even though he has a strong moral code Bruce is aware of the darkness inside of him that he tries to control but which always lingers in the back of his mind. He’s not all goodness; he can be vicious and angry and vengeful. And he wants to—has to—believe that there’s some goodness left in Jonathan from before he reshaped himself into the Scarecrow.

There’s a middle ground somewhere between what’s expected of either of them—for Bruce to be an unsullied beacon of light in the darkness like his parents were to Gotham, and for Jonathan to be a monster that people fearfully whispered about and dreaded—and what they really are. 

Jonathan smiles, and Bruce’s heart does a strange little skip in his chest. 

He really likes him. 

“Same place,” Jonathan promises, then he steps back and slips on his mask. “Don’t be late, or you’ll give me a fright.”

A soft, surprised laugh slips past Bruce’s lips, and he can see Jonathan grin behind his mask. 

“Until tomorrow, baby,” he says before he starts sinking into the shadows of the alley. 

“Until tomorrow,” Bruce calls back.

Jonathan wants to see him again. He’s going to see Jonathan tomorrow. 

It’s a good thing that Selina already gagged Jeremiah, because Bruce has no desire to hear whatever it is he’s trying to say. 

“Holy shit,” Selina calls over to him once Jonathan disappears from view. “Bruce. You and me? We’ve got some catching up to do. Seriously.”

Jeremiah screeches louder, and he doesn’t stop until Selina hits him hard enough to knock him unconscious. 

It takes another few minutes for Jim and Lee to find their way back to them, dragging a flailing Ecco along who gasps and shrieks when she sees Jeremiah lying completely prone on the ground.

“Relax _puddin’_ , I didn’t kill him. On purpose this time,” Selina drawls with a smirk, and Ecco scowls at her. 

Locking those two up is going to be a hassle, to put it lightly. Bruce really hopes that he doesn’t have to deal with any more people with wild ideas about ‘cleansing’ Gotham of its criminal element. His thoughts are so caught up in the terrible notion that he almost doesn’t notice Jim approach him.

“So.” Jim casts his eyes back at Lee, as if he’s trying to ask for help in starting whatever conversation he feels he has to initiate. Bruce can already hazard a guess at its subject matter. “Jonathan Crane was… Looking for you?”

“I may have entered into a partnership with him while Alfred was missing so that I would have better luck finding him if he happened to be hidden in the Dark Zone,” Bruce answers, unashamed of what he’d done when the motive behind it was his natural desire to want Alfred back.

Jim purses his lips as if he’s slowly digesting the information. He doesn’t automatically start berating Bruce about what a terrible idea that had been, which is nice.

And maybe, just maybe, part of the reasoning behind that was because Jonathan had done something so wildly unexpected as liberating Jim and Lee from Tetch’s grasp, and Jim was still floundering with the knowledge that he’d been helped by someone who had definitely tried to kill him more than once. 

“And what did he want from you in return for his help?”

My social security number, is the first thing that pops into Bruce’s head. But Jim knows that Bruce isn’t actually an idiot, so he discards the idea quickly. He doesn’t want to tell the truth because then Jim might start asking about what questions Jonathan had asked him, and why Jonathan would want answers from him in the first place, and that feels… Private.

Their first and second meetings aren’t something that anyone else knows about. Bruce would rather keep it that way. He doesn’t need anyone else knowing about his particular interest in vigilante justice, especially not a police officer. 

“I gave him a few smoke bombs, prototypes from Wayne Industries. They might not have been enough by themselves, but I think I appealed to some of his remaining empathy; one tragic orphan boy to another.”

“Ah.” Jim shifts and clears his throat, uncomfortable at the mention of the only similarity that most people would think of if they attempted to compare Jonathan with Bruce. “I guess that makes sense.”

“But it’s over now. We agreed to pair up until Alfred was found, and he’s safe again, so.” Bruce shrugs. “Our partnership has come to an end.”

It’s a good thing that Jeremiah is unconscious, because he would no doubt be throwing an absolute fit right now. 

“Well.” The obvious unease finally dissipates from Jim’s entire being, and Bruce feels his lips quirking upwards despite himself. “I’m glad Alfred is safe, and you, too. I know you can do a lot to take care of yourself, but I still worry about you.”

Bruce feels his smile widen, just a touch, and he doesn’t resist the urge to step in closer to wrap his arms around Jim’s waist.

“I know you do.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end for now, but I am not finished with these boys yet. I love their dynamic way too much, lol. Gonna take a little break to focus on a few other things that I have going on right now, but I've still got plans for these two within this little canon divergent piece. :)
> 
> Thanks for taking the time to read, and for the lovely comments and kudos, I hope you enjoy the final chapter of this part. I'll be seeing you again soon. <3
> 
> xoxo

Seeing Bruce arrive before sunset is a relief, a joy, a gift. Perhaps it was just something paranoid inside of him brought about by his knowledge of Jeremiah’s not at all subtle obsession with his—his _something_ —but he’d been planning on breaking into the Green Zone again and tracking Bruce down if he wasn’t exactly on time.

Jeremiah was a slippery snake, and Jonathan already hadn’t had much faith in the capability of the GCPD to do its job back when it was fully staffed and equipped, and if there had been any indication that Bruce wasn’t where he ought to be—

But he is. He’s here, with Jonathan, even though Alfred has finally been found.

Bruce’s offer of seeing him again was charming—not that Jonathan had any plans of letting him slip away. However, it was nice to know with absolute certainty that Bruce wasn’t going to act as if their partnership had meant nothing.

There’s so much potential between them, it’s enough to make Jonathan feel strangely enamored by the possibilities. 

“You’re early,” he calls out as Bruce approaches, a smile tugging at his lips.

“So are you,” Bruce retorts, a cheerful sort of gleam in his eyes. He’s still visibly worn around the edges from the events of the past week, but there’s an appealing spark of liveliness inside of him that had been diminished when his fear and anger were taking over.

Happiness looks good on him.

Jonathan doesn’t resist the urge to reach out, and Bruce doesn’t resist coming closer.

Like drawn to like, as it’s meant to be.

Jonathan rests his forehead against Bruce’s and revels in the easy closeness. 

“What’s the plan for tonight, baby?” Humour colours his tone at the nickname—something that had once been another tool that Jonathan could use to get under Bruce’s skin—but unmistakable affection is there, too.

The gleam in Bruce’s eyes sharpens to become unequivocally dangerous as a solemn expression overtakes his features, and Jonathan almost shudders at the sight of it.

“Tetch is still out there,” he says in a tone that promises vengeance, “and I’m not particularly fond of loose ends.”

Jonathan can feel his blood start to rush, thrilled at the opportunity to continue working with Bruce. Fighting him all those weeks ago had been exhilarating but partnering with him had proven itself to be nothing short of a sublime experience, something that Jonathan was eager to stretch on for as long as he could.

“Me either.”

Loose ends always had a way of coming back to haunt you, and Tetch was too powerful out here with access to so many able-bodied people that he could force to do his bidding. If he wasn’t dealt with what were the chances of him breaking into the Green Zone to attempt to free his allies? Even the idea of Jeremiah being at large again so soon after he’d finally been caught, so soon after he’d tried to force Bruce into reenacting the night his parents died, is almost enough to make Jonathan burn up. That couldn’t happen. Jonathan wouldn’t allow it.

Bruce smiles, and Jonathan’s simmering anger settles.

Jonathan fondly—maybe reverently, it’s difficult for even him to tell—pulls Bruce’s goggles down his face to rest over his eyes. 

“Let’s go.”

He turns but Bruce reaches out and grabs onto his hand, tugging him back.

Pulling him into a kiss.

Jonathan could never get tired of this.

He cups Bruce’s face with his free hand and presses back against his mouth, greedy for all of the affection that Bruce sees fit to give him. Bruce sighs against him, and one hand drifts up to tangle in Jonathan’s hair, and it really does feel as if something is finally right with the world.

“Jonathan,” Bruce murmurs as he pulls back, “what are we?”

“What are we as singularities—” Champions of fear, shadows in the dark, stories told to children to keep them on their best behavior. “—or what are we together?”

“Together.”

Answers spring into Jonathan’s mind—some of them too fanciful for Bruce to take at face value, some of them too cloyingly sweet for Bruce to accept as the truth when they’d only been allies for so short a time—and though there is something stunning about the way Bruce looks when he starts getting mad Jonathan knows he can’t afford any missteps right now, he can’t afford to have Bruce think that he’s exaggerating and then start closing himself off because of it. Not when he’s one step closer to getting what he wants.

A future alongside Bruce.

“What would you like us to be?”

It’s a simple question, and the best answer.

Bruce is the sort of person who craves control in the ongoings of his life; so much so that he’d entrench himself in the shadows, become something of a vigilante, and even ally himself with a known enemy just so that he had the ability to do what he felt needed to be done. So many things had happened to him, to the both of them, really, that they’d had no control over. Too many things had broken beyond repair back when they were nothing but powerless children.

Jonathan knows what he wants them to be. If it were anyone but Bruce that he felt this for he’d answer directly; he’d push and push for the future that he desired. Selfish and underhanded, maybe, but Jonathan was far from being one of the good guys. 

But the affinity that he has with Bruce, the attachment that had been growing ever since their first crossing of paths, keeps him from brazenly overstepping.

He had meant it when he’d said that he cared about what Bruce wanted.

He’s turning into a _sap_.

He doesn’t entirely mind, not when it’s for Bruce. 

“That’s not what I asked,” Bruce responds stiltedly. Jonathan can’t see his eyes from behind the lenses of his goggles, but he’s sure that Bruce is very carefully not looking directly at him right now. That won’t do, though, so Jonathan reaches out to lay a hand on his cheek.

He’s sure that he can sense when he has Bruce’s full attention again. It feels… Intoxicating, in a way. Fitting, in another.

“I really like you Bruce,” he tells him, but it doesn’t feel like enough. “Last night when I couldn’t find you, when I wasn’t sure what you’d been caught up in, I was—” His throat feels dry, and his heart races at the memory of the rising panic he’d experienced. “Scared.” It’s almost mortifying to admit it—the weakness, the _vulnerability_ —but it’s one of the most compelling truths he can say, and he knows that Bruce is too good to use the knowledge of it against him. “There was a point with Tetch where I thought that you had—he told me you were with your parents, but I didn’t know that he and Jeremiah had created a false set, and I thought—” Fuck, what he had thought. Too terrible to say the dreaded word out loud. “I thought you were gone.”

Bruce lays a hand over his, gentle and reassuring in a way that Jonathan’s not entirely sure how to respond to.

He would have killed Tetch if he’d been any slower in saying what he’d really meant. He would have killed Jeremiah if Bruce hadn’t told him not to. He would have left Gordon and Thompkins behind if he wasn’t sure that their passing would hurt Bruce. He is who he is; the Scarecrow—his own personal demon come to life— he’s not just Jonathan Crane, not anymore. 

“I really like you too, Jonathan.”

There’s a spark of something warm and satisfying inside of him.

“Then what is it that you want, baby?”

Bruce’s one hand remains overtop of Jonathan’s on his cheek and his other pushes his goggles back up into his hair. It’s a sweet gesture; looking Jonathan straight in the eye to prove his sincerity as if Jonathan wouldn’t be able to determine, even without seeing Bruce’s eyes, if he were being dishonest. 

“I don’t know what’s going to happen after reunification,” Bruce tells him lowly.

Ah yes, reunification with the mainland. What would become of Jonathan once Gotham’s police force actually had the help that they had needed ever since the night the bridges blew? 

“I’m not sure that what I want matters when the future is so uncertain.”

It’s difficult to keep from telling Bruce not to worry about reunification and to only think about the present. It’s also very difficult to stop himself from reminding Bruce that even if he was dragged back to Arkham—the most likely possibility, though perhaps he could remain on the loose for a while—those walls hadn’t been enough to keep him trapped inside before. Jonathan can’t help but assume that he’d find a way to break free again, even if it was on his own.

“It does matter. It matters to me. That’s enough, isn’t it?” Jonathan rubs his thumb against the skin underneath Bruce’s eye. 

He wants it to be enough.

Bruce stares at him for several long moments as if he’s trying to pick Jonathan apart, or maybe like he’s weighing the pros and cons of continuing on as they are; becoming more attached only to eventually be separated.

Not that Jonathan planned on staying separated.

Though, again, it was perhaps not the best time to remind Bruce of his previous jailbreak.

Bruce turns his head and presses a kiss to the inside of Jonathan’s wrist. Another sweet gesture, another thing that makes Jonathan’s heart flutter in his chest.

“Would you like to meet Alfred?”

The question catches him off guard for a moment. 

Would Jonathan like to meet the person whose disappearance had driven Bruce into an alliance with him, the person who had supported him for years, the person who was, in all likelihood, the closest thing that Bruce had to a father?

That was a monumental step, wasn’t it? Meeting the parental figure? It wasn’t the sort of thing that would be suggested if Bruce didn’t see something in Jonathan that was worth sticking around for. 

“I’d like that.”

Bruce’s lips quirk up at the corners.

“Good,” he sounds relieved, as if he’d suspected that Jonathan might be wary of such a thing or thought that Jonathan would have said ‘no’ point-blank.

Perhaps Jonathan is going to have to be a little more open with Bruce, if only to be sure that they’re on the same page. If Bruce couldn’t find it in himself to be direct about what it is that he wants with Jonathan, then Jonathan will take the step first.

“I want to be with you, Bruce. As more than an ally.” Or whatever it was that they were, now. Partners who occasionally flirted and kissed as business was dealt with. “I don’t want us to go our separate ways. There’s something between us; you feel it as well, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Bruce responds softly. “I feel it.”

“Then what is it that you want?”

“I want to be with you, too.”

“Then let’s be together.”

They could deal with the future, with reunification, when it actually happened. 

For now, they could enjoy the present.

“Alright.” Bruce nods, once, and a determined look crosses over his features before he darts forward to press another kiss to Jonathan’s lips. Jonathan can’t find it in himself to hold back a chuckle even as he eagerly begins to press closer. They’ll find a way to stay together even if the world tries to pull them apart, Jonathan knows that they will, because when they work in unison with a common goal…

Jonathan is sure that they’re capable of anything that they put their minds to. 

“Let’s go find Tetch,” Jonathan says as he pulls away. He moves Bruce’s googles down his face again before donning his own mask, and then he reaches out for Bruce with one hand. “Shall we?”

Bruce smiles sharply and takes hold of him. 

“Let’s give him something to be afraid of.”

Oh, to hear those words from someone so capable of stirring up terror like Jonathan, someone who could make grown men cower as he preyed on their fears just as easily as he could take them down in a physical fight. 

Jonathan thinks he’s in love.


End file.
